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INTRODUCTION
Our guest today is Professor Dindo Manhit, who has been founder and managing director of the Stratbase Group in the Philippines since 2004 and previously held various roles across government, academia, and civil society across several decades. We start our conversation talking about the current state of Philippine politics and several geoeconomic and geopolitical developments in 2025 ahead of upcoming midterm elections in the country. Make sure you watch, listen, or read the full episode as we go through a range of other subjects, including future scenarios to watch on the South China Sea, as well as geoeconomic sectors such as critical minerals and semiconductors.
To receive full ASEAN Wonk posts and support our work, consider a paid subscription for $5 a month/$50 a year through the button below. For more on pricing for institutions, groups and discounted categories, visit this page.
Note: The transcript that follows the above free clip preview has been lightly edited for clarity and organized into sections for ease of quick browsing. For all ASEAN Wonk Podcast episodes, full video and audio podcasts, along with edited and sectioned transcripts as well as block quotes, will be a premium product for our paying subscribers, but we will include a short free transcript preview and a clip for all readers to maintain accessibility. Paying subscribers can find the rest of the full transcript and the full video podcast right below the paywall. If you have not already, do consider subscribing, and, if you have already done so and like what you see and hear, do consider forwarding this to others as well who may be interested. Thank you for your support as always!
ASSESSING THE MARCOS ADMINISTRATION’S FOREIGN AND ECONOMIC POLICY APPROACH
ASEAN Wonk: So welcome to the ASEAN Wonk Podcast, Dindo, thank you for joining us. Let's get started with our conversation. And while there's understandably a lot of focus on the Philippines with respect to 2025, I wanted to start first by getting your views on how we might evaluate the status of the Marcos administration thus far in its single six-year term in office. So there have been some successes, including building a more global alignment network in spite of tensions with China and the South China Sea. There have also been some challenges as well. And some of the polls, including ones Stratbase has commissioned, have shown issues such as on inflation and cost of living, not unlike some of the other countries in Southeast Asia. As someone who's been helping shape policy in the Philippines for decades, how would you grade the Marcos administration's foreign and economic policy approach thus far? And you can use a scale of one to ten or alphabet letters and so on and so forth. How do we go about thinking about this question about how to grade the Marcos administration?
Professor Dindo Manhit: I think Dr. Prashanth, when you look at the Marcos administration, two and a half years into office, we have seen them really consolidate support in the broader population, broader sectors of Philippine society. Of course, what remains challenging is really the reality of economics. Basic economics in the Philippines is really the high cost of living. And of course, with it comes challenges in terms of securing livelihood, better incomes. So the challenge of unemployment and underemployment. And it adds to the poverty of people. But beyond that, you see our own government – and this is unique, I have not seen this really – the broad support for the alliance or partnership or the engagement that the Marcos administration has really brought two years and a half into office. And hopefully, this kind of engagement goes beyond security or traditional national security engagement, but it creates opportunities for investment that can help really in terms of economic security of the Philippines.
Because at the end of the day, we are an economy that continues to grow because of our young population. Consumption continues to expand and this is driven by strong remittances from overseas Filipino workers around the world. Also, strong growth in what we call the service sector. But what we are lacking is more investment in the manufacturing sector. We are not looking for big manufacturing, but if we can be part of the so-called supply chain, bigger part of the supply chain, especially as we see the globalization of the world economy. You know, when we hear from future cabinet appointments of President Trump, they speak of friendshoring. I hope they realize that in ASEAN, we are the real friend. We share like-minded values. So when we see investments going to Vietnam and other countries, we tend to ask ourselves: are we simply important because of strategic location? But maybe strategic location translates into economic opportunities for a broader growth trajectory, which is investment-led, which is job-generating, which allows our people to get better livelihood, to improve their lot, and consume more. So it becomes a cycle for that kind of challenge. But I think we are on the right track.
“[T]hey speak of friendshoring. I hope they realize that in ASEAN, we are the real friend.”
There is a lot of political noise. The international community has heard of that. But I consider it political noise because for me, I consider the Dutertes – based on my own data, the family of the former president – as a spent force in the Philippines. This is a story of how in politics, no matter how you keep things from happening or coming out, the institutions tend to work for good governance and these are basically audit reports that they cannot answer to. So they're deflecting it as if these are all politically motivated. Maybe the politics is there as it was. But all this data and reports are really traditional institutional ways in the in the Philippine society to make government officials accountable for their actions. So this noise is a deflection on the positive direction the country is moving towards to, especially as we engage other countries, as we become more open to private sector investors in the Philippines.
PHILIPPINES GEOECONOMIC TRAJECTORY: RHETORIC VS. REALITY
ASEAN Wonk: Right. So, Dindo, I wanted to ask: you kind of referenced it there already, which is that the Philippine economy is gaining attention as kind of a big geoeconomic story, I would say, within Southeast Asia under the Marcos administration. And this is beyond the sort of geopolitical focus on the South China Sea. I mean, I was looking through the latest Asian Development Bank outlook that just came out for 2025. And the Philippines, again, is the second fastest-growing economy in Southeast Asia after Vietnam at a projected rate of 6.2 percent. And the Marcos administration has noted that, if this continues, the Philippines is on track to essentially become a trillion-dollar economy by the early 2030s. Under Marcos Senior – under Ferdinand Marcos – the question was can the Philippines shed its reputation as sort of the sick man of Asia at that time. But under Marcos Jr., do you sense that the country is on a pathway to becoming really a key regional geoeconomic player in its own right? Because these are some really fascinating numbers. But as you know, we’ve been through many cycles of kind of hope and optimism about the Philippines. I'm interested in your views as to how sustainable do you think this trajectory is that the Philippines is on.
Professor Dindo Manhit: When you look at these numbers, Prashanth, something to think about also. I would say that in spite of government, we are hitting those numbers. So imagine we are on that pathway a decade and a half ago under the Aquino administration. We had some challenges during the Duterte administration. Of course, the COVID, the last three years of COVID 2020 to 2022 really became challenging for the Philippines. But what remained strong was because of our population that remains our key strength and a very young population that consumes, at a median age of 25, imagine if we build beyond the service sector, then we can sustain it further. The data that you quoted earlier is actually coming from a Standard and Poor's projection that by 2033, we'll be among the top twenty biggest economies in the world. We're number thirty-three now. The problem in the Philippines is we don't like to talk about these things because we don't even read those reports. We tend to talk about how we have failed, how Vietnam is up there.
But we're up there. Our economy is still bigger than Vietnam. And we can find ways also to build on our strength, which is our service sector, build more on the manufacturing side. As I said earlier, light manufacturing, industrial manufacturing. A little growth there can sustain it further. Because I came across a study, and I was invited to the briefing by HSBC, the Hong Kong Shanghai Banking Corporation, talking about how we will be the top 15 by the latter part of the 2040s if we follow this trajectory without, again, even interventions from government. That means without what I was talking about investment net growth. So the pathway is good. And I think our economy is resilient enough that government changes, but our economic policy doesn't change.
And we saw that with Duterte. We got frustrated with him in terms of position, in terms of West Philippine Sea issues, in terms of democratic challenges during his time. But the economic team that he brought together was able to maintain a trajectory moving forward. Maybe we could have grown more if it was not Duterte. But with Marcos, that's why also Marcos gets this chance of really growing forward because he learned from the missteps of the Duterte administration and became, you'd say – more coming from a family that is known for its dictatorship – an investor friendly, private sector friendly administration. And with that also, side by side with this engagement at the security front. So that makes our economy stronger and repositions us geoeconomically, hopefully. I use the word as countries that share our values: derisk, diversify. And I'm looking forward for the globalization. Because I think in the global world, we will see countries like us: the US, its allies, its partners, EU. We can really be their partner in Asia. Because the Philippines is the only country that is not tied up to China in terms of our economic direction and growth.
LESSONS FROM THE DUTERTE ERA AND US-CHINA ALIGNMENT SHIFT CHALLENGES
ASEAN Wonk: Right. So I wanted to ask a follow-up question. You mentioned a couple of times already the Duterte administration and what that experience was like for the Philippines because you yourself went through that period. The Duterte period in the Philippines and its alignment between the United States and China is a really interesting case study more broadly with respect to Southeast Asia. Because you saw the Duterte administration – and President Duterte himself who had personal views with respect to the United States relative to China – try to move the Philippines closer towards China. But you did see a reaction from the private sector, from society at large, because the Philippines is a democracy. I’m including the military. Which is to say, look, we understand where our national interests lie. We know where our long-term alignments are. And so we saw President Duterte try to shift the Philippines with respect to China, but he didn't really get as much as he thought he would. So could you maybe relate what was the experience like with President Duterte? For me, looking at this objectively from a regional Southeast Asia lens, it does reinforce the important point that irrespective of what leaders want to do, particularly in democracies like the Philippines, it is really important for you to bring along the other aspects of society, whether it's the private sector, the elites, the population at large. And we did see a little bit of a disconnect there between what the leader of the Philippines wanted and the rest of the country wanted. But I'll leave you to characterize that as somebody who was intimately involved in that process what those lessons are for Southeast Asia in general, not just for the Philippines.
Professor Dindo Manhit: You know, Prashanth, during that period, I'm one of those individuals that did not give up on democracy. And also the institutions of our own government, state institutions. Maybe because they're different from other pundits that tend to watch by reading the news but not really being part of the process. Me, I've lived that world. The young part of my life, lived that world again as a president of a think tank, lived that world again as I engaged in my consulting business and tried to bring investments. So I know that there were challenges at the time, but he was an elected individual president. He was a legitimate authority, and I know that we respect legitimate authority. But really, I think when we hit the midterms, I felt that there was a decline. Duterte was simply saved by COVID. But the good thing was the institutions of our state, the Philippine state, a democratic state. And I emphasize that for ASEAN because we're the oldest democracy in ASEAN, and we value it really. I knew that it would end. That means his term ends, he ends. And that's what we saw. Nobody believed me when I was saying that.
And also I know for a fact that internal to the bureaucracy – both the civilian and the military bureaucracy – they respect constitutional authority, but within their own little world, they would know what national interest is. And it even allowed my group to engage with a lot of them up to the cabinet level, to the point that in the end, six years after President Duterte, we never really moved policy. The idea of economic weakness of the country to be coerced by China never happened, to the point that Duterte in these last six months was claiming all his anti-China actions. But of course, we all know all his anti-China actions was simply driven by a pushback from society. And also his anti-China statements is because the daughter would have lost if she was perceived to be a China candidate. Because at the time [data indicated that] it was seven out of ten Filipinos will not vote for a pro-China candidate.
“[S]ix years after President Duterte, we never really moved policy. The idea of economic weakness of the country to be coerced by China never happened…”
So given that as background, it tells us a good lesson for ASEAN countries and for the world that there are democracies. If we really talk about working with countries that share our values, I hope the outside world should see us because we don't relate more with ASEAN countries. We tend to relate more with the US, Japan, Australia, EU countries, Canada, even South Korea. Because even with South Korea, we tend to look at ourselves as coming from the same roots. We fought a dictatorship. Not perfect. Our democracy is not perfect, but who is perfect? Especially when I look at the US and EU now. But we remain this way. But the best is, look at us, look at the Philippines as a democratic country, that if you understand how we work, you would understand that there is rule of law in this country. You would understand that we are a very open economy, just like our democracy is also open. That's why we push back on leaders like Duterte who is now suffering from lack of political support. That's the nature of what democracies are. And I think we will continue to be that way. And hopefully, Marcos is just again the first step. Because we thought the first step was a keynote in 2010 because we had some challenges in the previous government. That's when I became active as a think tank because I was raising issues on governance, on transparency, on accountability in the early 2000s period of our country because of illegitimate leadership. That means they cheated their way to election. But now we've addressed the electoral process. You have to accept who gets elected by the public and build from there. And that's what we are hoping in 2025 as we start a new year, as we go into the midpoint of this administration.
But how can he build on what he has started in his two and a half years into office, Marcos? Because he will have two and a half years to go because of the last six months, his election period. So we hope to build that and build it more to our friends and allies and partners who share with us that we are an important waterway, the West Philippines Sea. We are in an important strategic location. But hopefully, we can also be an important economic player into 2025. Because, again, as you have quoted, data reflects that. That is the projection. Hopefully, we break those projections in a positive way or even reach those projections. And I see that happening in the next two and a half years of this government.
2025 DATAPOINTS TO WATCH IN PHILIPPINES AND REGIONAL GEOPOLITICS AND GEOECONOMICS
ASEAN Wonk: Right. Which brings me to my next question, Dindo, which is the 2025 datapoints to watch. As I mentioned at the outset, there already is quite a lot of focus on what looks to be like a very active year for the Philippines in 2025. And we've got everything from the midterm elections in the Philippines, which you referenced, which is very interesting given the state of the Duterte-Marcos dynastic dynamics, and then you have the dynamics of the US-Philippine alliance in the South China Sea under the Trump administration, which you also mentioned earlier as well. And of course, the other component, which I think you very astutely noted, is that there is a bit of a gap, right, for those of us who watch the region very closely. There’s the sort of global alignment network that the Philippines is building. So it's not just Asia with respect to Japan, for example, or Australia, but it's also Canada, France, a number of these other countries. But the big question obviously is the gap between that global alignment network with what the Philippines is experiencing within ASEAN. Which is even though there are individual countries in Southeast Asia that look at what the Philippines is doing and say there’s at least a country that is confronting China on this count, ASEAN as an institution has been lagging in terms of some of these key flashpoints, including not just the South China Sea, but also Myanmar, for example. Some of that is due to consensus decision-making, which is not unique to the South China Sea. But what are some of these top datapoints that you're looking to ahead in 2025 to sort of look at Philippine geoeconomics and geopolitics? Because you cover both of those aspects.
Professor Dindo Manhit: When you look at ASEAN….
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INTRODUCTION
Our guest today is Ambassador Scot Marciel. He spent over three decades working in the US government, including as US ambassador to Indonesia, Myanmar and ASEAN.
We start our conversation talking about the current state of U.S-Southeast Asia relations. Make sure you watch, listen or read the full episode as we go through a range of other subjects, including datapoints to watch in 2025 and the U.S. approach to evolving flashpoints such as South China Sea and Myanmar.
To receive full ASEAN Wonk posts and support our work, consider a paid subscription for $5 a month/$50 a year through the button below. For more on pricing for institutions, groups and discounted categories, visit this page.
Note: The transcript that follows the above free clip preview has been lightly edited for clarity and organized into sections for ease of quick browsing. For all ASEAN Wonk Podcast episodes, full video and audio podcasts, along with edited and sectioned transcripts as well as block quotes, will be a premium product for our paying subscribers, but we will include a short free transcript preview and a clip for all readers to maintain accessibility. Paying subscribers can find the rest of the full transcript and the full video podcast right below the paywall. If you have not already, do consider subscribing, and, if you have already done so and like what you see and hear, do consider forwarding this to others as well who may be interested. Thank you for your support as always!
GRADING THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION’S SOUTHEAST ASIA APPROACH
ASEAN Wonk: So welcome to the ASEAN Wonk Podcast, Scot, thank you for joining us. And we can get started with our conversation. There's obviously a lot of focus on what an incoming Trump administration would mean for Southeast Asia. But I wanted to start first by asking your views about how the Biden administration actually has performed during its term in office. There have been some clear wins, including upgrades with Indonesia and Vietnam, the upgrade and the relationship with ASEAN, as well as the minilaterals cultivated with the Philippines. But there have also been some challenges on the trade front with Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), and some issues in terms of the balancing between ideals and interests and sensitivities in Southeast Asian countries. As somebody who's been a practitioner for over three decades, looking at these actual relationships, how would you go about grading the Biden administration's record on Southeast Asia? And you can use whatever scale you want, whether it's one to ten or alphabet letters and and so on and so forth.Ambassador Scot Marciel: Yeah. I think overall, I would give the Biden administration pretty good marks. You know, on a scale of one to ten with ten being ideal, probably somewhere in the seven range. Positives are some of which you already mentioned: upgrading relations, some of the formal double upgrade with Vietnam, even though as a diplomat, you know, we used to make put a lot of effort into those things: they're more symbolic than real — or they can be more symbolic than real — but I think there's some real substance behind some of them. Certainly, the one with with Vietnam, and I hope the one with Indonesia. So those have been positive. There was more consistent high level engagement under the Biden administration than there was with the previous administration.
On the negative side, trade, the lack of trade initiatives — which is a bigger problem than a Biden administration problem — but the US political unwillingness or inability to engage in trying to negotiate new trade agreements is a real setback or or at least a real negative, I would say an ongoing negative. And also, I think President Biden's failure to show up at the last two summits. You know, people sort of say, well, these summits, they're just talk shops. But but to me, in my experience, showing up at those levels is really important to Southeast Asians, Southeast Asian leaders and governments because they use it a little bit to gauge the level of US commitment. So if you miss one at every ten years, it's not that big a deal. But if they see patterns of more engagement or less engagement, it causes them to either increase or reduce their confidence in the US as a long term partner. So I'd take off some points on that front. Overall, pretty good.
DEFINING THE SOUTHEAST ASIA STAKES FOR THE INCOMING TRUMP ADMINISTRATION
ASEAN Wonk: Right. And to your point, some of these issues are unique to the Biden administration; others are more systemic problems with US policy. And I think on trade, as you said, these are issues that that have to do with domestic pressures on whatever administration is going to come to office as well. I wanted to also talk a little bit about the stakes for the incoming administration. I think if you look back to the first Trump administration, there were some issues and challenges on Southeast Asia, but I think one thing that the administration did do was some clarity on China policy. And I think some countries in Southeast Asia looked at that favorably, others looked at it with a little bit more suspicion. But there was this dynamic of US China competition that we did get a lot more clarity on in the Trump administration relative to, say, the second term of the Obama administration.
But I think at the same time, even though it's just been four years, there have been quite a number of things that have changed in terms of the US position, the dynamics in Southeast Asia and just global dynamics in general. You can look at what happened in Ukraine, you can look at the crisis in Myanmar. But also, other notions about post-pandemic growth and sectors like artificial intelligence and supply chains — a lot of these things are pretty new relative to where the first Trump administration was. Most of the leaders in Southeast Asia are actually new even though it’s been just a few years. And actually, it's a really interesting dynamic on US China competition. US economic performance in the past couple of years has actually been quite good and China's economic performance has actually slowed down relatively speaking. You've advised US officials at the highest level of government about the stakes for the United States in Southeast Asia. I'm wondering, in terms of the incoming Trump administration — with the caveat that we still don't know who the cabinet level officials are are going to be and what the the makeup is going to be — what's your topline about the US stakes in Southeast Asia now relative to four years ago when the Trump administration left office? Ambassador Scot Marciel: Yeah. It's a great question. I'd say, first of all, the economic importance of Southeast Asia has become even greater, and continues to be greater. And particularly when you look at supply chains, which was a focus of the Trump administration and of the Biden administration, and I expect will be a focus of the new Trump administration even if it's overall not enthusiastic about trade per se. So I think there are some real opportunities there. You look at, for example, President Biden's visit to Hanoi talking about supporting Vietnam's effort to become a key cog in the semiconductor supply chain. Obviously, critical minerals in places like Indonesia and Philippines, etc. So there are some some real opportunities there, and the region's important. I mean, overall, as you know, ASEAN collectively I think, is the fourth or fifth largest US trading partner these days, and I think four of the ten ASEAN members are in the top twenty too. So economically, it's really important. Politically, it's important just because it's such a dynamic and diverse region. If things go badly, it's gonna be a problem for the region and the US and vice versa.
And then there's vis-a-vis China. And this is one of the the most challenging things for US policy makers. You know, people say — I say — we should engage with Southeast Asia on its own merits. And I think that's really true because for the reasons I just mentioned and others, even if China didn't exist, Southeast Asia would be a really important partner. But even in the context of looking at US-China competition, I think there's a little bit of an a a false dichotomy offered sometimes between, well, engage with Southeast Asia on its own merits or through the prism of China. And I think the reality is that you can engage with Southeast Asia on its own merits while still having China very much in your mind. So when the president or the secretary of state sits down with a counterpart from Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia, wherever it may be. Ideally, they're talking about the bilateral relationship, shared interest, trade investment, health cooperation, security cooperation. They both probably have China in the back of their minds. That's okay. There's nothing wrong with that.
But where I think the US goes wrong is it tends sometimes to assume that the countries of Southeast Asia see China the same way we do, which they don't necessarily. And also assumes that the first thing to do when you start off a meeting is talk about how problematic China is, which generally doesn't go over very well. So I think that requires some nuance: to be thinking of Southeast Asia partly in the context of US-China relations, not wholly, but to make not make the discussions all about China. And that's a level of nuance that, frankly, I think is gonna be a question mark for the incoming Trump administration and will depend to a certain extent on both who's appointed, but also who has the lead. You get, you know, somebody like a Secretary of State Rubio — I don't know him personally — but at least has some background in foreign relations and foreign policy as opposed to someone who may be less experienced and may have a harder time finding that kind of nuance.
MINILATERALS, ASEAN ENGAGEMENT AND BILATERAL PATHWAYS
ASEAN Wonk: Yeah. I think that's an important point that you make about the balance between US-China competition and seeing the region for its own sake, particularly because, as you know, this notion of the region being viewed from the lens of other items — whether it's terrorism or the Cold War — is something that goes back decades. So it's definitely something that's really important.
You're former ambassador to ASEAN. And I know you were also instrumental in some of the big ideas in US policy in Southeast Asia, including having a resident ambassador in the region as well. We're at a really interesting time in terms of US engagement with ASEAN. ASEAN's challenges have always been quite familiar and longstanding, in spite of the fact that as you've written, ASEAN's original purpose was actually managing tensions and issues within the region among Southeast Asian states, and it succeeded there. But in terms of the big issues — flashpoints like the South China Sea or Myanmar — it's been a little bit less successful and there are more challenges there because they're difficult issues. We're also at a really interesting point where in US policy, we're seeing a lot more traction on minilaterals, including some of the minilaterals involving the Philippines — the US-Japan relationship with the Philippines, for example, and that trilateral — but also AUKUS, the Quad, so on and so forth. And there's often this dynamic which you've mentioned earlier of false choices. And I think there's one in this notion of bilateral versus minilateral versus multilateral. And obviously, it's a balance, it's a calibration. I'm wondering, as somebody who's been a practitioner in this space and ambassador to ASEAN, how do you see the balance currently that the US has been navigating between bilateral, minilateral, multilateral pathways? Ambassador Scot Marciel: Yeah. I think bilateral has always been the top priority. And I think that's almost inevitable, and it’s mutual. You know, when we're engaging with Vietnam or Indonesia or Thailand or Cambodia, eighty percent of the discussion is going to be on bilateral relations, and that's fine. I don't think that gets in the way of US relations with ASEAN.
When you get into the minilaterals, it gets a little bit more challenging because ASEAN meetings are boring and often not — at least the official meetings — not incredibly productive. And I think a lot of friends in ASEAN would agree with that. So that's part of the reason it's hard to get senior officials to say: let's fly all the way to Southeast Asia and go to an ASEAN meeting. But as you know, there's lots of value in engaging with not only the ASEAN members, but all the others who come to the region and remembering that ASEAN serves a very useful purpose even if it struggles in some of the areas you mentioned. On the minilateral front, I think when I look at the Quad, AUKUS, some of the things with the Philippines, sometimes those things cause some nervousness among some Southeast Asian countries for sure. That's always going to happen, but I think you can mitigate it to a large extent by better communication. So, you know, folks in Jakarta or KL or Bangkok shouldn't be reading about these things for the first time in the news. You sit down with them ahead of time and say, look, this is what we're doing. Here's why we're doing it. It doesn't take away from our commitment to working with ASEAN. So more discussion, more communication is, I think, the way forward on that. Again, it it won't completely solve the problem, but I think it helps. And you look at ASEAN members, I mean, they're doing minilateral stuff too. Mhmm. So minilaterals by itself isn't a problem. It's when when the big power comes in — whether it's the US or another — and suddenly announces we're doing x, y, and z, it's gonna raise some suspicion.
ALLIANCES AND PARTNERSHIPS
ASEAN Wonk: I’m wondering how you think about the the question that you mentioned a little bit earlier with respect to other US partners in in the region. So one of the big US strengths if we think about US China competition is the US not alone. It’s got an extensive alliance and partnership network, with countries like Japan, Australia, Canada, Korea, so on and so forth. I think on the one hand, if you grade that as an alliance and partnership network, for sure, it's an absolute strength.
At the same time, I do think that over the past a few years, as the Trump administration takes office, we are seeing a lot of US partners and allies actually do more with Southeast Asia than the US is doing with Southeast Asia. And that almost raises the question among Southeast Asian states: okay, we know that you're doing a lot with your allies and partners, but we're interested in actually what are you doing. We know the Japanese are doing X and we know the Australians are doing Y, but what are you doing on economic engagement and diplomatic engagement? How do we think about the way in which we're calibrating the expectations for US engagement with US allies and partners, and then particularly on areas like economic engagement and diplomatic engagement, where expectations are for the US in particular? How do you make that sort of adjustment and balance in terms of thinking about that?
Ambassador Scot Marciel: Good question. I think, as you said, Japan, Korea, Australia, India — although it's not an ally — all are engaging more and building closer relations with Southeast Asia. And, of course, they're not doing it at the US behest. They're doing it as independent actors and sometimes with a very different approach than the US. I think that's a positive, and I think it's a positive for the US because the goal for the US from my perspective isn't, you know, necessarily being number one. But geostrategically, the key interest for me for the United States and Southeast Asia is doing all we can to ensure that the countries of Southeast Asia maintain full sovereignty and freedom of maneuver. And the more they have good viable, strong relations with a range of other countries, the the more likely it is that they're able to do that. But you're right. If Japan goes in and offers aid or builds a port or Korea does build a power plant or what have you, that's great. But it it doesn't count as in Southeast Asian eyes as the US doing something. Nor should it.
And so the US has to find ways to to do more. And some of that, we're doing a lot, but we're not we don't do a very good job of talking about it. Health. You know, we've invested over five billion dollars in in health research and cooperation in the region since the early 2000s. It's really good stuff and it's all grants. It's really positive. Very few people know about it. People know a lot more about our security cooperation. That's a strength and I think that will continue, but it's insufficient. And diplomacy, we're overall very active in the region. It's on the economic side where we're perceived as as operating more weakly. And there, you know, the numbers aren't bad. But when the US pulled out of TPP and doesn't move on other trade initiatives and doesn't have any way to compete with Belt and Road and so on, a lot of countries are like, what are you guys doing? And this is where I think the US has an opportunity.
I don't know that the Trump administration is gonna wanna take it on. For example, the Just Energy Transition Partnerships with Indonesia and Vietnam. Okay. Climate change is probably gonna be a dirty word again in the next administration. But doing energy business, in this case, clean energy business, shouldn't be a dirty word. And if the US working with others can deliver on some of these partnerships in a way that's tangible and really helps, the countries move toward cleaner energy mix, then it's not only an economic win and an opportunity for US companies, it's also a geostrategic win because you show that you're delivering on something important. It's never gonna match nor does it need to match Belt and Road. It just needs to show that we're able to do some things. And so I would push hard for implementing as much as possible these Just Energy Transition Partnerships, clean energy, and also in the telecom and digital realm where we have strengths. That's where we need to deliver. And if we don't, we're gonna lose some influence. There's just no way around it.
DATAPOINTS TO WATCH IN 2025 IN US SOUTHEAST ASIA POLICY
ASEAN Wonk: Right. And I think you make an important point there about sectoral cooperation. Whether it's energy — maybe it's not as much climate change, but there's a whole lot of opportunities on natural gas, for example, that some people are already talking about within this administration — but also semiconductors, AI, and a lot of the stuff you talked about earlier. For example, on critical minerals, where Indonesia has directly come to the US and ask for opportunities there, even though there there's some challenges as well. That's a really important point that you make that not just about aggregate cooperation, but it's also about delivering on key sectors for economic growth.
I'm wondering if we could shift a little bit to looking ahead to 2025. As I mentioned at the outset, there’s already quite a lot of speculation about what we might expect in the first year of the Trump administration. And as we discussed earlier, a lot of this is maybe a little bit premature, given we don't really know the makeup of the administration — the personnel for example. But I think in terms of the broad contours, we can at least say that, within the first year of an administration, there are familiar dynamics: in terms of new strategy documents that come out, this kind of familiar competition we have among Southeast Asian countries for who gets the first White House visit or engagement with the administration. But frankly, it's also an administration where we have a bit of uncertainty as well on things like tariffs, China policy, for example. A lot of that is rhetoric, and we don't really know how that's going to manifest in terms of reality. But I'm wondering, as somebody who has been a practitioner in the space, what are the datapoints you're looking for in 2025 with a new incoming Trump administration on Southeast Asia that will tell us a little bit about where the administration is headed for the next four years?
Ambassador Scot Marciel: Yeah. A couple of things…
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Fehlende Folgen?
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INTRODUCTION
Our guest today is Dato Dr. Ilango Karuppannan, who has over thirty years of experience as a distinguished Malaysian diplomat, with posts that included a high commissioner in Singapore, acting ambassador in the United States, as well as ambassador in Lebanon, where Malaysia still maintains a role in the UN peacekeeping force amid escalating tensions in the Middle East.
We start our conversation talking about the role of Malaysia's Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim in positioning the country geopolitically and geoeconomically amid US-China competition and the Gaza war. Make sure you watch, listen, and read the full episode as we go through a range of other subjects, including Malaysia's approach to flashpoints like the South China Sea and its coming agenda for the ASEAN chairmanship in 2025.
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Note: The transcript that follows the above free clip preview has been lightly edited for clarity and organized into sections for ease of quick browsing. For all ASEAN Wonk Podcast episodes, full video and audio podcasts, along with edited and sectioned transcripts as well as block quotes, will be a premium product for our paying subscribers, but we will include a short free transcript preview and a clip for all readers to maintain accessibility. Paying subscribers can find the rest of the full transcript and the full video podcast right below the paywall. If you have not already, do consider subscribing, and, if you have already done so and like what you see and hear, do consider forwarding this to others as well who may be interested. Thank you for your support as always!
ASSESSING MALAYSIA’S FOREIGN POLICY IN REGIONAL AND GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
ASEAN Wonk: So welcome to the ASEAN Wonk Podcast, Ilango. Thank you for joining us, and let's get started with our conversation. I think a lot of ink has been spilled on Anwar's rhetoric and Malaysia's recent foreign policy moves, its rhetoric on the Israel-Gaza war and its interest in the BRICS. We were talking a little bit about this right before recording. Much of this is not really new, and it's a product of strands in Malaysian foreign policy. We saw coexistence, for example, during Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad’s time between Malaysia's non-aligned rhetoric and relations with the United States in some areas like security moving under the radar as well. So I guess the more interesting question to my mind is beyond Malaysia doing X or doing Y to benefit Power A or Power B, two years into Anwar's term, how do we really assess the Anwar government's ability to secure Malaysia's own interests in a more competitive and contested world? So we can go with individual metrics like how many trips has Anwar taken, which is quite a few. He's been very active after Malaysia's recent revolving door of prime ministers. We can look at foreign investment: there have been a number of tech investments that have been quite notable. But if we could just zoom out a little bit from these individual metrics and just ask the question, how would you assess Anwar's foreign policy so far? And if you could use a scale of one to ten or a letter grade as somebody who's been involved in Malaysia's diplomacy for decades and seen this firsthand, how do we go about assessing Anwar's performance on Malaysia's foreign policy?
Dr. Ilango Karuppannan: Thank you Prashanth for that question. Well, you're right. I've been a diplomat for over thirty-three years, and I'm also currently teaching a master's course at University of Malaya. So I think I shall use the grading system that they use at university to grade Dato Seri Anwar's performance. Well, in the University of Malaya they use seven out of ten or seventy percent as a passing mark for masters. So I will have to start by giving Dato Seri Anwar a passing mark, a seven out of ten. But seven out of ten is nothing to be really jumping about because you just basically cross the bar. You don't have to repeat the course. Now let me tell you why I think he deserves a seven upon ten. First, I think the effort. I think he's putting quite a bit of effort. Malaysia's foreign policy, I mean, has been there's been a display of active diplomacy under his premiership. You must also know that Dato Seri Anwar is actually now the longest serving prime minister in the last six years or so. It's very strange to hear that, but he is actually the longest serving prime minister. And therefore, that has given him the chance to be a bit more active on the foreign policies. I mean, we have seen Anwar actively engaging by visiting practically all the ASEAN countries. That's a good thing. He has visited China a few times. He has been active on the Middle East issue. He has spoken about some of the Global South issues as well. So I think on the part of active diplomacy he deserves quite good marks. So that's one.
“So I will have to start by giving Dato Seri Anwar a passing mark, a seven out of ten. But seven out of ten is nothing to be really jumping about because you just basically cross the bar. You don't have to repeat the course.”
Number two, I think there is a certain problem because it seems to be a little bit unbalanced, all these efforts that he's put in so far. There seems to be, of course, a lot more emphasis on China, which, of course, we can understand it because China is a very close neighbor, huge trading partner and so on and so forth. Plus it's easier to travel to China than to travel to America, for example. You know, there's a lot more ground to cover, a lot more issues, a lot more preparation. So he's not been to the United States except for the UNGA session. So I think that's a little bit unbalanced on that part. There seems to be a lot of emphasis on the Muslim world so that also adds to that notion that there is a bit of imbalance here. Thirdly, I think as far as strategic gains are concerned, one would be hard pressed to find whether there has been significant strategic gains. For example, we are still not out of the woods insofar as China is concerned. I mean, with all the effort that has been put with China, one would have expected a bit more smooth sailing with China, but, unfortunately, we are still not there. You know, the Chinese side still goes on to the same position. You are aware that they have issued protest notes against Petronas' explanation for gas and oil over the South China Sea issue and so on and so forth. So there is an impression that there is not so much strategic gains that we would have expected. So on these three grounds, I think I would give him a pass mark, a seven out of ten, Prashanth.
MALAYSIA AND REGIONAL STAKES IN INTENSIFYING MAJOR POWER COMPETITION
ASEAN Wonk: Great. Thanks. A lot there that you mentioned, and I like how you distinguish between the fact that there's a lot of activity – and Prime Minister Anwar deserves some credit for that – and the big issue, as you pointed out, which is the extent to which this is producing strategic benefits for Malaysia and to what extent this is producing those benefits across the various relationships that Malaysia has. And that's, China, the United States, but also, as you mentioned, the Global South, the developing world, and a lot of these major strands in Malaysian foreign policy that's very complex. I guess one more specific aspect of that is what you've mentioned already, which is this environment of US-China competition. I think part of it is US-China competition being much more intensified, but frankly, it's also a much more complex and fractured global order. So we're talking about more protectionist sentiment, a lot more pressure on multilateral organizations, including ASEAN and the United Nations. In this competitive environment, there's sometimes a tendency to try to place Southeast Asian countries on, you know, if there's a US China spectrum, where do you fall? Do you fall on this side or that side? I'm less interested in that and more interested actually in a conversation about how Malaysia is navigating this environment relative to its other Southeast Asian neighbors. And you kind of hinted at this earlier.
So for example, when we're thinking about the relationship with the United States, both Indonesia and Vietnam have been able to get upgrades with the United States and engage with a mix of diverse partners on ecosystems on emerging technologies. Malaysia has been able to get some of those technology related investments, uh, from companies, including US companies. But the high-level engagement with the United States, partly because of the Gaza issue, hasn't been in place. Right? So some might say, in terms of strategic positioning, Malaysia is losing out. Others have said, frankly, who cares? So as long as Malaysia is getting in some of these tech investments, and Malaysia can kind of reposition itself after U.S. elections in any case. But I guess the big question for me in all of this is, Malaysia's own strategic value. And you pointed to this earlier, which is if you're a naval planner, it's hard to miss that Malaysia is not strategically positioned next to the Straits of Malacca and the South China Sea. If you are a strategist sitting in Beijing, you would see Malaysia as being a vital part of your strategy in Southeast Asia because maritime Southeast Asia is not very hospitable historically towards China. So if China were to be able to get a toehold in Malaysia in maritime Southeast Asia, that would affect general strategic planning in the competitive landscape. And the other aspect that you would look for is what you talked about with Malaysia's engagements with China. If you're planning any kind of infrastructure or connectivity with railroads, Malaysia is a place where you get connectivity from Thailand and Malaysia, which connects mainland Southeast Asia with maritime Southeast Asia. So for me, my big question is how do we kind of define Malaysia's strategic value in this US-China competition? Because sometimes I feel like in the headlines, there's a lot of focus on Malaysia as a semiconductor hub, or one or two of these other focus areas. But given your diplomatic experience and expertise, including having served in in the United States, how would you see defining Malaysia's strategic value? And then how do we understand how Malaysia is leveraging that strategic value in this US-China competition for its own interest?
Dr. Ilango Karuppannan: Yeah, so what is our strategic outlook here and how are we leveraging all of them, right? Number one, well, honestly, I'm looking at it from a diplomatic perspective. I understand that the noises coming out from the media world is somewhat distorted because they have a certain audience that they want to project their views to. Right? So I think there's a little bit more of trying to oversell things rather than or rather put it up in a more sensationalist perspective. But I really haven't seen a great big shift in terms of our strategic outlook say from the times of Dr. Mahathir's time all the way now. Generally, we look at it this way. I mean, we, I think, are very strongly wedded to the idea that we cannot take sides. That's for sure. We understand the value of having excellent relationship with the United States. It's true. It's a bit unfortunate that I suppose timing is also part of the problem that we have not been able to engage as much as we should have with the United States right now.
I've been talking to some of my American colleagues here. I think there's been a missed chance for a telephone conversation early in the days of when Anwar became prime minister that would have sort of settled down. There are all these niggling questions here whether we are thinking differently about America or not. So that's not true. We are still in the same way with America. And I want to add that there is also a strategic dialogue at the senior officials level with Malaysia. I mean, between Malaysia and the United States. Because of COVID, it had been put on hold for a number of years. It is restarting. So that's actually a very strong indicator that we value the relationship and we intend to, you know, prep it up. So this is the way Malaysia has always been dealing with the United States. While it's very difficult for us to have very high-level engagement with the US because of many structural constraints, timing-wise and, you know, logistics etcetera, but we try to bolster this with high quality or good quality relationship at the officials level. With the defense ministry, I think there's a good relationship going on. I just read in the news the other day that the US has handed over a Coast Guard cutter to Malaysia, you know, to obviously to patrol its waters. And the reason why Malaysia has taken it up is I think quite clear too because we do not intend to allow China to push us off our rights of patrolling our territory. I mean, EEZ, for example. So I think in the past, we have been a bit lucky because this competition between the US and China has been rather benign, so it did not put us into the spotlight. The current problem really is not us. I think the problem is actually because of the intensification of this rivalry between the United States and China, and unfortunately the spotlight is also shining on us now. The question is how are we dealing with it? The problem is we are dealing with it exactly as we've been dealing with it for the last twenty, thirty years. The question is the spotlight is now shining on us and we are trying to explain it.
“I think the problem is actually because of the intensification of this rivalry between the United States and China, and unfortunately the spotlight is also shining on us now. The question is how are we dealing with it? The problem is we are dealing with it exactly as we've been dealing with it for the last twenty, thirty years.”
So with China, our relationship has also been the same, but it has become substantially difficult. The Chinese are also now very much aware that they also have to put up a strongman show out there to show that they are not seen as soft or being pushed over or being overly aligned with Malaysia. That's also to their interest. So there is a whole lot of things going on. Nobody wants to be seen as being aligned anywhere. At the same time, you need to balance things by showing that I'm still not giving up my right to work any of these claims or any of these things. So to cut short a very long rambling answer of mine, I think the way the Malaysia looks at things has not changed, number one. We are still keeping up the same methodology that we have always used. That is that is while in between high-level contact between the ministers and the prime minister, the leaders, we try to have good quality senior official level communication going on. And I have not seen any evidence – not a single piece of evidence – that that has gone wrong. That is still going on very well.
In terms of investments, as far as you said, I think the numbers show that the US is probably now leading as the long-term overall investor in this part of the world and that also seems to me is not changing when I talk to the chambers of commerce people. I think there's still the strong interest going on. Furthermore, with this interest of diversifying or moving away the semiconductors industries now back to this part of the world, Penang, for example, has become a sought-after destination. So from the strategic outlook, from the economic side, from the investments, they all are good. I think where there is a serious problem is because there is also a huge problem going on in the Middle East. And Malaysia, unfortunately, because of the very strong position that we have taken on the Middle East for the longest time, we just cannot remain silent. So Anwar is compelled to speak about it. Maybe he's spoken about it about a bit more than others would have done so. So that also adds to the optics that perhaps Malaysia has a certain different view with the American side. But I would want to assure your listeners that from my perspective, looking at it objectively as a diplomat, I do not see a great big divergence yet.
ASEAN’S TRAJECTORY IN 2025 AND BEYOND
ASEAN Wonk: I think that's very helpful, because, given your experience, you framed it as a very multilevel reality. At least the US diplomats that I talked to would agree that there were initial lost opportunities to engage the Anwar government early on. And then, obviously, the crisis took place in the Middle East last year in October. And that lost opportunity then made things a little bit more challenging, um, on that front. I think you also noted very clearly there that there is that recognition on both sides, it's fair to say. I think if you talked to diplomats on the Malaysian side as well as on the US side, there are a lot of things going on in the relationship. Maybe they're going on quietly, but it doesn't mean that if there aren't these sort of high level upgrades that there isn't anything going on. You mentioned maritime security, which is extremely critical, still going on. There was an exercise, Keris Strike, that the US conducted with Malaysia and Australia that took place a few months ago as well. So, you know, there are a lot of things that are happening irrespective. And as you pointed out as well, US engagement is more than just this high level or leader level engagement. US companies engage extensively in Southeast Asia, including Malaysia as well. So there's that dynamic as well to recognize. I also think it it's come it's hard to quantify, but I think there have been a couple of public instances where actually the Anwar government has sort of had to tamp down some of the Israel Gaza sentiment. For example, there was a defense exhibition and there was some Malaysian pushback or backlash against the involvement of US and US-linked companies and Israeli-linked equipment and so on and so forth. And the Anwar government came out quite clearly and said that we understand that there's Middle East sentiment issues here, but we also have very clear economic equities and defense equities in this relationship. And so I think you you can't just focus on some aspects of the government where they're playing it up and then not focus on the aspects where they're tamping it down. It's also a bit of a balancing act domestically for Malaysia, but I think sometimes that's missed in the headlines as well.
I wonder if we could move on to talk a little bit about Malaysia's upcoming ASEAN chairmanship in 2025. And here, we're very fortunate to have you because you can talk about this from a very historical perspective because back when Malaysia was doing its chairmanship back in 2005, you were involved actually in some of the major deliverables and developments that happened during that chairmanship. One was the East Asia Summit, which was a very important mechanism through which ASEAN engages major powers, which has also given rise to some of the things we hear every year about whether the U.S. president is attending this meeting or not. But also, the ASEAN Charter, which is an extremely important mechanism. Malaysia played a role later in helping institutionalize some of these ASEAN mechanisms. So I wanted to get your perspective in particular because you were actually involved in this period. I think one view might be that this period was sort of the heyday of ASEAN, the 2000s where ASEAN was really active. There was this institutionalization agenda. It was actually ahead, you could argue, of this Indo-Pacific game because the East Asia Summit was about engaging not just, the ASEAN Plus Three, but also, you know, India, the US, so on and so forth. But then, I guess, even multilateralists today, like Indonesia's former foreign minister Marty Natalegawa, have argued that since then, it's become more challenging for ASEAN in the 2010s and the 2020s in this environment of intensifying US-China competition. I still remember Pak Marty was proposing this idea of an Indo Pacific Treaty in the 2010s, and it didn't really go anywhere unfortunately. And then ASEAN was behind the curve. And after all these Indo-Pacific strategies, it had to come up with the ASEAN outlook on the Indo-Pacific, for example. So help us set the context for Malaysia's ASEAN chairmanship. I mean, we we're talking about this ASEAN vision twenty 2045 and so on and so forth. But from your perspective of somebody who's worked on these issues, where is ASEAN today, and what is the ASEAN that Malaysia is inheriting with the ASEAN chairmanship?
Dr. Ilango Karuppannan: Thank you. I can talk all day long about ASEAN because as you mentioned, I've been involved in this so deeply. You made also a very good observation…
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INTRODUCTION
Our guest today is Moe Thuzar, who spent a decade at the ASEAN Secretariat and previously was a diplomat as well. Now, she serves as coordinator of the Myanmar Studies Program and senior fellow at the ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, which is one of Southeast Asia's leading think tanks, and she previously helped head up the ASEAN studies program there as well.
We will start our conversation talking about the ongoing civil war in Myanmar in the context of wider regional and global dynamics. Make sure you watch, listen, or read the full episode as we go through a range of other subjects, including the stakes for major powers, future scenarios for Myanmar and how the country is likely to factor into the ASEAN agenda in 2025.
To receive full ASEAN Wonk posts and support our work, consider a paid subscription for $5 a month/$50 a year through the button below. For more on pricing for institutions, groups and discounted categories, visit this page.
Note: The transcript that follows the above free clip preview has been lightly edited for clarity and organized into sections for ease of quick browsing. For all ASEAN Wonk Podcast episodes, full video and audio podcasts, along with edited and sectioned transcripts as well as block quotes, will be a premium product for our paying subscribers, but we will include a short free transcript preview and a clip for all readers to maintain accessibility. Paying subscribers can find the rest of the full transcript and the full video podcast right below the paywall. If you have not already, do consider subscribing, and, if you have already done so and like what you see and hear, do consider forwarding this to others as well who may be interested. Thank you for your support as always!
PUTTING GLOBAL AND REGIONAL STAKES IN PERSPECTIVE
ASEAN Wonk: So welcome to the ASEAN Wonk Podcast, Moe. Thank you for joining us.
Moe Thuzar: Thank you for having me, Prashanth.
ASEAN Wonk: We continue to see a pretty tragic situation play out in Myanmar amid the ongoing civil war. And just so that we're not being euphemistic or very general about what's happening, just for the benefit of listeners, watchers, and readers. The UN estimates from just a few weeks ago show over 5,300 civilians killed, more than 3.3 million displaced since the military seized power on February 1st, 2021. Coupled with the casualties after Typhoon Yagi as well, the economy has contracted by about a fifth. Since the coup, according to the World Bank, about a third of the country is in poverty. The junta is estimated to control around just about a half of the country. And there's also been worries about growing apathy on the situation in Myanmar. One of the reasons why we wanted to have you on the podcast, Moe, is that ISEAS has been one of the few institutions who has actually done measurement around this and how this factors into other regional issues in Southeast Asia. The ISEAS State of Southeast Asia survey showed, for example, this year that the Myanmar crisis was ranked below the top five in terms of issues in Southeast Asia and, obviously, you know, lots of issues there, Israel-Hamas war, South China Sea, global scam operations, and and so on and so forth.
But I'm wondering if you could just help us set the stage about how Myanmar factors into this very diversified regional landscape in Southeast Asia. What are your thoughts about as someone who watches the Myanmar situation on its own terms, but also someone who's watched the regional context as well. How do we think about Myanmar's place within the regional context in Southeast Asia and also the global context that we have there? How would you assess that?
Moe Thuzar: Right. Thank you, Prashanth. That's a very broad range of questions and issues to address when we think about the ongoing, very tragic situation in Myanmar. Maybe we could start first by just getting to look at that overall situation of what is happening in Myanmar or what's going on in the context of the civil war that you just mentioned. As an aspiring historian, I think it would be remiss of me to not point out here that Burma in the past, Myanmar today, has never really been free from a civil war type of situation. There's a decades-long type of conflict that's been going on in the past, mostly in the periphery areas of the country where, you know, different ethnic armed organizations have for their various objectives been pushing back or resisting the Myanmar military. And so this type of, I guess, civil war armed conflict in the periphery areas situation started almost almost simultaneously or within the first year or so of Burma gaining independence in 1948. So I think we also need to look at that when we, you know, refer to the ongoing civil war or the current civil war.
But what we've seen since the coup by the Myanmar military on the 1st of February 2021, of course, is a more nationwide situation across the country, not just in the periphery areas. And actually, I think for the first time in the country's history, also really spreading into what have been formally viewed as the heartland areas, areas in the center of the country where traditionally they've been kind of recruitment grounds for the Myanmar military. So it's really become this kind of nationwide situation. And the broad objective that people are coalescing around is to reject the military's dominant role in politics and, of course, try to call for a more federal system of democracy. So in that state, how do we then assess the overall situation, particularly in these past couple of years where I think the conflict in Myanmar has of course been in the news, I think in the regional news more than, say, globally, although it does pop up time and again. And you mentioned situating Myanmar in the global context. Of course, globally, we have what's going on in the Middle East, what's been going on in Ukraine since 2022. And I think all of these also affect how people here in this region view the situation in Myanmar, where I think most of us know about Myanmar as having been under a military regime of some sort. And even with the brief decade of opening and the efforts to transition to democracy from 2011 right up to the coup in 2021, of course, I think now Myanmar being under a military regime again, the frame of reference always tends to be: “oh, that's the situation.” And, of course, that's the frame of lens that most of us see it.
“[I] think it would be remiss of me to not point out here that Burma in the past, Myanmar today, has never really been free from a civil war type of situation.”
But for those of us who are trying to follow the situation, monitor developments that have been happening, there's this term that has now entered the lexicon of any conflict discussions about Myanmar, and it's called Operation 1027. Now that's a kind of a military offensive that was launched by ethnic armed organizations in Myanmar's northern Shan state. That's in the northern part of the country in areas that are close to Myanmar's border with China. And it had progressed quite rapidly, taking several strategic outposts and recently even an important regional command. So because of that, Operation 1027 has shifted, I think, the conflict dynamics and seized imaginations on the ongoing civil war in Myanmar. And the forces spearheading this offensive have also been brought more into focus. As I mentioned, these are ethnic armed organizations that have formed alliances of their own. They have operated mostly in the northern part of the country, but one of the members of that alliance also is the Arakan Army, which is the ethnic armed organization that emerged rather recently in Myanmar's conflict civil war history. It emerged in 2009, and it's in the western part of Myanmar in Rakhine State, where it has also been pushing back rather successfully against the Myanmar military, more so in recent months. And, of course, there's the consideration of resistance groups, including what are called PDFs, People's Defense Forces. Some of them come under the broad framework of the parallel National Unity Government that formed after the coup with elected lawmakers from the 2020 elections.
Why Operation 1027 has seemed rather consequential in conflict discussions about Myanmar is because there are several realities that we now see in Myanmar. Firstly, the Myanmar military is losing more administrative control in several areas, including towns and regional commands. And, of course, this has both strategic and psychological impacts. And, we also need to look at then the situation of people in these towns and areas over which the ethnic armed organizations — the different forces — the areas that they have taken control over. And that requires also consideration of the administrative services delivery. Or in the case of important trade routes, mind you, these are locations that are along the border trade route between Myanmar and China. So if we look at that in that context, there's also that connectivity consideration. Then not least, of course, the locations in which Operation 1027 and its aftermath have unfolded inevitably raised questions about the implications from Myanmar's bilateral relations and neighbors' concerns. And so I think it's in that kind of a context. So if we look at the receding administrative control of the State Administration Council military regime in Myanmar currently, the losses of strategic regional commands and border posts, trading points. We also see, of course, the increasing assertion of administrative and other services in the areas from which the military regime's control has receded, but there are different administrators in different areas.
So, for example, in Rakhine state, it could be the Arakan army. In the Sagaing region, more in the central part of the country, it might be the NUG, the National Unity Government, and its coalition or allied partners. In the southeast, it might be different ethnic armed organizations like the Karenni National Union or or the the Karenni Armed Forces. So I think this is how we can also view this landscape. Recently, the Myanmar military has offered peace talks. But in that offer, it still uses language that invokes the resistant forces as terrorists. And, of course, the military's public statements still continue expressing the vows or the commitments to crush all opponents. So there's that language and rhetoric that continues even as the military now probably sees itself in a position that it needs to start offering or talking about this “peace talks.”
And the resistance, of course, if we look at it whether different parts of groups have differing objectives, the resistance still broadly shares a common goal of rejecting military rule or dominance. And let's not forget also, if we look at the current situation and context, the enforcement of the conscription law. Now that started earlier this year in April 2024, and sources tell me it is now in the seventh recruitment round of conscripts. So this has been going on. Recruitment and training of conscripts seems to occur roughly monthly, and one can only conjecture where these conscripts are being deployed or have been deployed and what has been their fate, for which there will have to be much, I think, more efforts done to collect and collate the numbers and the impacts. I'm sorry I took a bit long, but that's the broad overall context that we need to be aware about when we check the pulse, shall we say, about the overall state of the current situation in Myanmar.
FOREIGN PARTNERSHIP MIX AND EVOLVING REGIONAL DYNAMICS
ASEAN Wonk: That was terrific. And especially the granularity with which you presented the various actors in Myanmar. Often there's this caricature of the junta and everybody else. But as you pointed out, even within the junta, there are some issues there with the amount of control they have, the border trade, their relationship with other groups. And then there's the NUG, there's the PDFs, there's the various ethnic groups. So it's a very complex context. So thank you for walking us through that.
I'm wondering if I could just ask, before we go a little bit deeper into some of these aspects, you gave a good overview of the internal situation in Myanmar and you mentioned a couple of key relationships there, including with China. There's been a little bit of focus as to Myanmar's narrowing list of partners and increasingly intensified ties with China and Russia, with a focus on some of the individual data points like the number of junta visits to China and Russia, the Myanmar's admission as a dialogue partner of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, for example. At the same time, we do know that there are other key partners as well that are exerting influence — India, Thailand, European states, the United States. And we've seen some of the developments spotlight that — Thailand's humanitarian corridor initiative, for example, different equities as well within Southeast Asia, right? So Thailand and it's border role, Singapore and and finance, Malaysia and the Rohingya population there. I'm wondering if you could just walk us through what's the kind of state of play in terms of Myanmar's balance of partners. We should remember that although we started out talking about the conflict, this is a country, not a war or a conflict or an issue. As someone who has looked at this country closely, what is your sense of how we should think about Myanmar's balance of partners in this context?
Moe Thuzar: Another very interesting and also very broad-ranging, question, Prashanth. This really brings us to the point that you've very eloquently highlighted about Myanmar's location in this region, positionality when it comes to regional and also broader geopolitical dynamics. And, of course, in this day and age, no country is really isolated or can stay isolated even if they wish to pursue their own agenda or interest in that sense. So if we look at it, of course, we've got the ASEAN context. And then from that ASEAN context, we could see the links or the connections to how the current military regime in Myanmar is trying to leverage or maneuver the very narrow diplomatic space that it has by seeking other kind of regional forums and so on where it feels that it may not receive as much diplomatic pressure or even whisperings in the corridors, shall we say.
So let's just backtrack a bit and look at it first in that regional setting of ASEAN. Because since 1997, of course, Myanmar has been an ASEAN member. It joined ASEAN under a previous military regime, but with the commitment at least by the technocrats — the civilian career diplomats in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Myanmar at that time — to to really try to engage ASEAN's policy of constructive engagement and see how by participating in ASEAN, there could be that — through that exposure, education, if you will — open up through ASEAN, maybe looking a bit at the Vietnam example from Vietnam's membership in 1995. And of course, fast forward more than quarter of a century later, we do see Vietnam as that success story of having opened up through ASEAN. Vietnam has graduated from that new member status.
And I just referred back to that membership trajectory because, in that former existence as a member of the Myanmar foreign service, I was part of the team preparing for Myanmar's admission to ASEAN. So I do see and understand how the policy of constructive engagement within an intergovernmental process was meant to really assist, I think, intentions or sentiments that were willing to open up through membership obligations and responsibilities. So as a member in any association or organization, yes, they are rights, but they are also obligations. And I think this is also something very pertinent to now. I think the assertion of what is a member state's rights versus what is required as a member state's obligations to the association. So, with that broad context again, I would say Myanmar has come a long way from the ASEAN response to developments in Myanmar under the previous military regime of the State Peace and Development Council.
“So as a member in any association or organization, yes, they are rights, but they are also obligations. And I think this is also something very pertinent to now.”
And, I remember the first time that an internal situation or an internal development in Myanmar was really brought to ASEAN's regional attention as a point of concern was in 2003. The Depayin incident as it is referred to where supporters of the State Peace and Development Council military regime set upon and brutally attacked the supporters and the members of the National League for Democracy, the main opposition party at that time, the convoy, which was also headed by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the National League for Democracy, outside a town in Central Myanmar called Depayin, causing deaths, casualties, and, of course, physical harm to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. So that became a point that ASEAN wanted to know what's going on. And since then, the situation in Myanmar became a regular agenda item to be discussed at foreign ministers' meetings and summits. And whoever represented Myanmar was in for a lot of questioning. It may have happened behind closed doors, but nevertheless, it was there on the agenda.
And so whoever was going to be sitting in the Myanmar seat knew that they would have to have an answer to a lot of questions coming thick and fast. So you see that. And that was 2003, as I mentioned. Of course we cannot not mention the 2007 Saffron Revolution and the military's brutal repression of unarmed civilian protesters at that time, that led to the first enunciation of ASEAN's strongest language up to that point. ASEAN used the word revulsed. So that to me was rather strong compared to previous language. Then the following close on the heels of the 2007 Saffron Revolution, which was in September of that year, then in May of 2008, we had Cyclone Nargis. Then the response to Cyclone Nargis was also seen as ASEAN's breakthrough because that was the first time the Myanmar regime accepted external assistance — external intervention, I should say — in the form of humanitarian assistance situated in the context of the cyclone response. Then, of course, ASEAN also tried to call for free and fair elections, 2010. Free and fair elections didn't happen in 2010. But then ASEAN also had a cautious welcoming of the unexpected changes instituted by the government of the Union Solidarity Development Party, a military backed political party headed by president Thein Sein. And, of course ASEAN also has viewed with interest the future political role of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy when they became the legal opposition via by elections in 2012.
So with all that history of ASEAN closely following developments in Myanmar in its regional diplomacy setting, I think now we can really see the main difference of ASEAN dealing with the post-2021 coup Myanmar is a more rules-based entity. ASEAN is a more rules based entity after adopting the ASEAN charter in 2007 and the charter's entry into force in 2008. So if we look at that then, ASEAN's response, the 2021 ASEAN chair, that was Brunei. The ASEAN chair had to issue a statement about the coup, and that statement was issued on the 2nd of February 2021. That statement referred to the ASEAN charter's principles on democracy, on democracy, good governance, and respect for human rights. So that's a subtle statement they're already warning, if you will, that there are these obligations and these requirements and upholding the principles of which member states have signed on to. And, of course, there is what we are more familiar with in diplomatic circles is this unprecedented decision by ASEAN to limit Myanmar's attendance at ASEAN summits. And that also happened during Brunei's term as the 2021 ASEAN chair. Under Cambodia's turn as ASEAN chair, that nonpolitical representative criterion was actually expanded even to foreign ministers' meetings. So Myanmar's attendance at ASEAN summits and foreign ministers' meetings have been limited to a nonpolitical representative. Even as ASEAN continues to practice regional diplomacy as a means of communication, trying to get the message across to the regime in Naypyidaw.
So that's the difference from the past. In the past, from 2003 up to 2012, this kind of communication would have been made at the ASEAN table with a recurring portion on developments in Myanmar, in the joint communiques and summit chairman statements. And now we have this differentiation. As long as there is no progress in implementing what ASEAN had actually negotiated and discussed and agreed upon in good faith with the coup leader, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, in April 2021 — in the form of the broad five point consensus agreement document —Myanmar's attendance at these important high level political meetings is now limited to just a senior official, a nonpolitical representative attending and representing Myanmar. So the seat is not empty. It's just how it's been limited. And of course, the Myanmar military regime responded to that initially by choosing not to send a representative, which gave the impression that there's an empty seat syndrome.
But starting this year, I also noticed a bit of a change. I think Myanmar's State Administration Council regime has started adhering to that nonpolitical representative criterion by sending a permanent secretary from the Myanmar Ministry of Foreign Affairs to such meetings. So I think here, it's also important to note that the nonpolitical representative criterion, as I mentioned, it is linked to the State Administration Council's noncompliance with the Five Point Consensus, but the nonpolitical representative criterion itself is not part of the Five Point Consensus. It came about as ASEAN's response to the State Administration Council's conflation of its own internal five point roadmap with ASEAN's broad Five Point Consensus that they nevertheless tried to negotiate with the Senior General. In the past, ASEAN actually went along with the previous military regimes — for example, the State Peace and Development Council's seven point roadmap to democracy. That was the kind of thing that the regime in Myanmar at that time presented to ASEAN after the Dapeyin incident in 2003 to say they were trying to move towards democracy. So in the past, ASEAN went along with Myanmar's internal domestic road map and monitored its progress, so to speak, via the briefings that the Myanmar political principals would deliver at high-level ASEAN meetings. Now we are seeing ASEAN standing firm that ASEAN's Five Point Consensus is something that ASEAN has negotiated to help — as you know — bring about cessation of violence and facilitate humanitarian assistance as well as help to mediate among different political stakeholders in the country towards an eventual dialogue type of situation.
So ASEAN's very clear that the Five Point Consensus is not the five point road map of the state administration council regime, and they are trying to differentiate that as well. So that's the other kind of differentiated nuance that I see. I could go on about parallels that we see in the revisiting of past breakthroughs. And here I refer to the 2008 Cyclone Nargis response. The then government of Myanmar accepted ASEAN's bridging role between Myanmar and the international humanitarian community to address what happened after the devastating cyclone and the humanitarian crisis looming in those days. But those references to that humanitarian assistance as the first step, you know, the first entry point, so to speak, is revisited by both sides, I would say. We've had the Rohingya crisis erupt after the military's disproportionate crackdown on Rohingya communities in northern Rakhine state in 2017. And that happened under the National League for Democracy's watch at the helm of government in Myanmar. The NLD brought that issue to Myanmar and therefore asked and sought ASEAN's assistance in that. So they had that Nargis parallel as in, as long as we go through ASEAN, we'll have a breathing space. And, of course, the State Administration Council also has that institutional knowledge and capacity across its civil service, particularly in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, from those experiences and and therefore has that additional, I guess, leveraging capacity to know how to maneuver the ASEAN space as we have seen.
I mentioned the 2017 Rohingya crisis, but, of course, we have seen that in the context of ASEAN's effort to introduce a humanitarian pause after the 2021 coup. So those are the broad regional dynamics that are going on. But when it comes to Myanmar's foreign policy, external relations, I've observed that there's also this tendency to go bilateral, to seek out who might be more sympathetic among the different ASEAN members and the other external actors in the regional and international communities. So that's something that we're also seeing in addition to, I think, the State Administration Council military regime seeking to leverage the narrow diplomatic space that it has with several of the countries that you've mentioned and and seeking membership or observer status, associate status in other regional organizations. I guess we could go on about Myanmar's ties with its key neighbors, but I'll wait for how you would like to see the conversation go on.
PREPARING FOR 2025 SCENARIOS AND IMPLICATIONS
ASEAN Wonk: That was great. Thanks a lot, Moe. And I think it's really useful that you set this in historical perspective. Whenever we're talking about ASEAN, I think everybody's familiar with its challenges, but any multilateral organization is only going to be as effective as its member states and only as effective as — if it's addressing one particular country, only as effective as that country allows it to be if it's a particular situation. So it's great that you situated that in historical perspective. So building off of what you said, I think the last round of ASEAN summitry in Laos, as you're aware, ASEAN concluded unsurprisingly that the Five Point Consensus was “substantially inadequate” after a review. You mentioned a series of measures that ASEAN's been taking, such as suspending Myanmar as well from chairing the grouping on a rotational basis for an interim period of time.
But at the same time, there are several other steps that have been called for repeatedly. Strengthening the office of the ASEAN special envoy has not been followed through yet, and there have been worries of slippage of earlier measures potentially in terms of level of representation and so on and so forth. But I guess the question is, moving forward, we've got the 2025 chairmanship by Malaysia. And before we get into what we think might happen or potential expectations, I guess there is a little bit of nervousness about this sort of repeatedly-delayed elections being held in Myanmar. Now it's being said that it's gonna be held sometime in 2025. If it's held, how might this reinforce divisions within ASEAN? Who might send observers, who might not? What are the individual responses? What are the collective responses? Given all this, what's your sense of how likely this scenario is of an election actually happening in 2025? And, if it happens, what should we be preparing for? What are the likely responses? And how are you thinking about how this could play out in the context of Malaysia's chairmanship?
Moe Thuzar: Thank you, Prashanth. Again, a lot of different points to consider there…
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INTRODUCTION
Our guest today is Captain Sarabjeet Parmar, who retired last June from the Indian Navy after nearly four decades of service dating back to 1987. He has written and spoken widely on a range of topics including maritime security and doctrine in the Indo-Pacific region. He currently has various affiliations including as distinguished fellow at the United Service Institution of India as well as the Council for Strategic and Defense Research. We will start our conversation by talking about how to think about India's role in Southeast Asia and the wider Indo-Pacific given its status as the world's most populous country and one of the centers of Indo-Pacific thinking on geopolitics and geoeconomics. Make sure you watch, listen, or read the full episode as we go through a range of other subjects including US-China competition and various other issues including the South China Sea, Myanmar and much, much more.
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INDIA’S STRATEGIC STAKES IN SOUTHEAST ASIA IN INDO-PACIFIC PERSPECTIVE
ASEAN Wonk: So welcome to the podcast, Sarabjeet, and let's start, if we can, on India's defense ties with Southeast Asia. We last saw each other at an Indo-Pacific conference in Indonesia early this year, and there have been a number of defense-related touch-points at play amid leader exchanges, including the deployment of Brahmos to the Philippines and the finalization of the defense credit line when the Vietnamese prime minister visited India. As a practitioner and as someone who has worn the uniform, I'm wondering how do you see these various developments on the defense side? Because you've had an opportunity to see this in a multi-decade period, and we also have a number of developments that keep popping up in the news, including Malaysia's Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim who was in India. And in terms of how to characterize this or quantify it, it would also be interesting to get your sense of whatever characterization you would like to place on it, whether it's a letter grade or between a a scale of one to ten. What score would you give New Delhi with respect to India’s Act East Policy in Southeast Asia, given the fact that this is entering into its tenth year, and we're seeing so many of these developments happening?
Captain Sarabjeet Parmar: Morning, Prashanth. It's great to connect online, and thank you so much for this opportunity to come onboard your platform. And that's a volley of questions. So let's start from the top then. Alright? So let's go back to around the Look East policy time of around early 1990s. And that's the time when India was coming out of sort of being accepted by the global community. You know, the Cold war was behind us. We were looking for new relations, which have now fructified into very strong strategic partnerships, especially with the US. And we were more aware that we need to engage various countries at various levels to come of our own and to be recognized as a maritime nation as well as a growing regional power. And also, at that point in time, the Asia-Pacific part. Indo-Pacific was not on the horizon at that point in time. And so the journey started off. And so we've come a long way since then. We have engaged ASEAN nations bilaterally. There are a number of exercise we do. I'll give you certain examples as we go by. And then we've engaged ASEAN navies as an entity on its own in the last exercise we did with the ASEAN maritime forces.
And plus when you look at the relationships that have grown and you mentioned a few, so let me take on a few right now. Vietnam, for example. You know, there were a lot of commonalities between the defense equipment Vietnam had and India had because the source was the same coming from USSR and then, of course, Russia. And we have engaged Vietnam, and we even had a mobile training team positioned in Vietnam for training of crew and technical people on the Kamov aircraft, which is a common defense equipment. Then there were talks on submarines. We both had the SSKs of Russian origin, and therefore, there was sort of talk. I don't know if it rectified at that point in time. And last year, we gave a corvette to the Vietnamese navy. We've also had Vietnamese officers coming for training to India. I've been a directing staff at our Wellington staff college, so we have offices from forty nations who come. Some nations send three officers, some send one depending upon the understanding, But the presence is there. And then, of course, with Vietnam, we do also go sometime back into the past where there has been support between Vietnam and India. And then, of course, we had certain differences in between. But as I said, after the Cold War, a lot of that ice has been broken. And today, when we look at the $300 million credit line which you mentioned, it opens up an avenue for not only more interaction between the armed forces, but also, we export opportunities for Indian defense industry, which is coming of age. And if you read the latest statistics, I mean, we have developed twenty three hundred percent from a certain baseline.
“And today, when we look at the $300 million credit line which you mentioned, it opens up an avenue for not only more interaction between the armed forces, but also, we export opportunities for Indian defense industry, which is coming of age.”
Over time, that baseline will change and the percentages change. But it's an indication from where we have come. And fifty percent of our defense exports go to the US, which is a little surprising for many people. But we are looking at exporting defense equipment to other nations. And I think the advantage India has, and that goes especially for a lot of nations whose defense budgets are not that high, is that they do not require too much of high-tech technology. What they need is something for boosting their capacities and capabilities. And more importantly on the capability part is to maintain and sustain that equipment. And therefore, India provides that sort of equipment at not very expensive rates, but something that suits the requirement. It's something that we have understood and developed on our own coming through what the prime minister says on Atmanirbhar. And so therefore, Southeast Asia provides an excellent market for India's exports. And if you look at the figures that come from SIPRI, you know, Southeast Asia is perhaps one of the areas or part of the Indo-Pacific that imports a lot of defense equipment from outside. So that's an opportunity there. And therefore, that's one example with Vietnam.
But let me give you an example of Philippines here. So now our relationship with Philippines on defense and security was perhaps not that higher magnitude as it was with other Southeast Asian or Indo-Pacific nations, but over time it has developed. And personally, I always felt that, you know, whenever we sail through the South China Sea, Philippines was sort of a void, which has changed. And that I think is a great news on that part. And, of course, I'd like to come to the sale of Brahmos missiles to the Philippines. And, of course – a little word on India's stance in South China Sea – over time, India's remarks on South China Sea and the security situation have been somewhat guarded, and there's a reason for it. When you look at the statements deposited at the time of ratification of UNCLOS, there is alignment in India's and China's approach to certain aspects. One is innocent passage in territorial seas, on military activities in the EEZ. So India's approach has been very cautious. But last year, for the first time, we made a mention that, yes, the judgment of the arbitration between Philippines and China must be respected. So that's the first time that we sort of have taken a different view and made very clear what we are looking at that because that looks at stability. It does not necessarily encompass the alignment of the views as I've just mentioned. It it requires a modicum of enhancing stability, ensuring security and preserving peace. There's three pillars of India's approach to maritime security. It's been laid out in the Indian maritime security strategy document of 2015. I was fortunate to be a part of the team that revised it. So I do know the contents in detail.
So I think the sale of defense equipment to Southeast Asia is in a way not complicating the situation there, but enhancing the capacity and capabilities of those nations and increasing the deterrent value of their hard power, which I think they do need to project. And just to give you an example, the three batteries of Brahmos missiles, which India exported or sold to the Philippines a couple of months back, they reached the Philippines. And I think the earlier this year it happened. And you can imagine those Brahmos missiles, given their speed and their range, actually provide a sort of a security blanket or a cover to a lot of the disputed islands that fall within the range of the Philippines. And given the nature of relations between China and Philippines – it's almost on a daily basis there seem to be collisions between their ships – and Chinese presence and the inability of Philippines to sustain its outposts is as a matter of concern, especially where sovereignty is concerned. So this is a starting point and I think the starting point has happened because of the increase in the Indian parts of the Brahmos missile.
I do remember I think in the early 2010s, around 2012 or so – I don't remember exactly – but there was talk of Vietnamese interest in Brahmos missiles. But I think at that point in time a good part of the components were not Indian. And so therefore, there were other issues involved which are not available in the open domain, which sort of restricted us, didn't let the sale or the talk of Brahmos missiles to Vietnam go through. But today, we have many nations who are evincing an interest in Brahmos missiles. We have a lot of nations who are evincing an interest in the Tejas aircraft and our advanced light helicopter. So these are defense equipment that will increase capacity and capability. And do remember, enhancing capacity and capability is one of the seven pillars of the Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative (IPOI). So this adds on to the Act East policy, right, which is under the overall umbrella of the vision of SAGAR (Security and Growth for All in the Region). So when you take SAGAR as a vision or even a concept, you can place it in any maritime area. It could be South China Sea, it could be Indian Ocean region and when it was spoken about in 2015, that too in Mauritius by the prime minister. You know, it was an idea that you can have it in the North Atlantic. You put it anywhere. No region was mentioned. So it's part of India's outreach of SAGAR, looking at maritime security.
And we're also looking at enhancing capacities and capabilities. So it helps not only those nations to have a higher deterrent value or, you know, a feeling of satisfaction that they will be able to protect the sovereignty, but also helps India in developing its own industrial base much more. So there is progress there. It's not only in the maritime element. For example, we do bilateral exercises with all the maritime nations of Southeast Asia. Let's start with the three nations who I always say are, you know, on the line between Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean region – Myanmar, Thailand, Indonesia. We do coordinated patrols with them to address nontraditional security issues in the Bay of Bengal. But the only issue with these coordinated patrols or CORPATS is that they're restricted to either side of the international maritime boundary line. I think we need to cross that line, and therefore, we need to be able to do more effective coordinated patrols, which requires, I think, much more. I think there is a little trust deficit in this, and that needs to be built upon. And that's maybe a residue of what I'd mentioned when I started pointing out that we've come from a point where India was seen as a threat in the 1990s to now it's we have a strategic relationship with almost all nations of the Indo-Pacific and especially Southeast Asia.
So we have these bilateral exercises. A lot of these nations attend the MILAN exercises which we conduct. We also have a trilateral between Singapore and Thailand. A lot of these nations come to India for training, as I said. In Singapore, especially, we’ve got a very strong relationship. I was commanding the air squadron in 2017 when we had the Malabar 2007-02 where we had six nations and around, I think, thirty-five, thirty-six ship submarines and, of course, associated aircraft at sea. And out of the six nations, there was, of course, the Quad, if I could talk about it now. And, of course, we had Singapore and United Kingdom also. Speaks volumes. And we've come a long way, and it's only after fourteen years from 2007 we managed to have an exercise equivalent to what we did in 2007. So there is involvement. There is cooperation. There is an understanding of respect of sovereignty.
And just to give you an example, if you look at all the statements deposited by nations after they ratified UNCLOS, you will find that there is an alignment of thought processes on innocent passage, military activities, and the EEZ, which was there in 1982 during when the UNCLOS discussions were going on. But most of these nations got independence after World War Two and most of them had been colonized. So there is there is a certain skepticism at that point in time that sovereignty is supreme. So therefore they wanted to have a sort of a buffer to ensure that the sovereignty is protected. And down the line, that has followed. I always like to give this example that despite the differences on UNCLOS between India and the US, today, we are the best of friends. We are working together. Quad is one example, approach to the Indo-Pacific, free and open is another example. Inclusivity, which India insists upon is slowly working. And so therefore, relationship with Southeast Asia will only increase. And how India tends to look at things and what China's view of India's approach is a separate issue. That is a bilateral issue. And so while we will still be maybe reserved on our comments on the situation in South China Sea, but I think this defense relationship is meant to enhance the capacity and capability of Southeast Asian nations. And I'll pause there for the time being so that we can roll on other questions.
INDIA’S ROLE IN THE SHIFTING BALANCE OF POWER
ASEAN Wonk: That's fantastic specifics there on interactions, and that's one of the benefits that you have with that extensive experience to be able to view these relationships over a longer period of time. I'm wondering to that question that you mentioned earlier about India and China, there is that bilateral component. There also is the fact that Southeast Asian countries are looking at the overall regional balance of power in the Indo-Pacific region, and India matters significantly in that balance of power. There are the sort of positive manifestations that you mentioned earlier. We're seeing that with the Quad, Brahmos, we talked about some of the earlier iterations with some Southeast Asian countries as well.
There also are the headlines and surveys that come out that serve as a bit of a mixed bag when it comes to India and its evaluation of Southeast Asian countries. So I'll mention a couple. One is the Asia Foundation survey, which we cited in the ASEAN Wonk newsletter that came out recently, and it looked at Thailand and Thai popular perception. So this is a public sort of survey, and it found that when it comes to overall engagement between major powers, only six percent of Thais thought that India was very important for the country's future, relative to China which was at fifty six percent, the US was at thirty six percent. In fairness, a lot of the other countries were hovering at around, you know, twenty percent, right, like Europe and Japan; Australia was at eleven percent. But nonetheless, these do produce periodic headlines about how do we understand India's importance? And then the other one, which is quite widely cited is the ISEAS-Yusof-Ishak Institute in Singapore when they do their annual elite survey, where I think in the last one, India ranked ninth out of eleven dialogue partners. So the mean score was just over five out of ten, and some people noted this was below even Russia, even though India's significance, if you look at it strategically, as you pointed out, is higher than Russia if you look at the overall relationship. Now I'm always very skeptical when it comes to taking one data point or two data points in a very sophisticated series of relationships that, as you pointed out, have evolved over multiple decades, not a single year or two years or three years. But I'm wondering, how do we make sense of this kind of mixed bag, and particularly from your experience as a practitioner who's looking at this over several decades: how do we understand the mix of kind of opportunities and challenges? And it goes back to the question of, if we were to grade India on its defense ties with Southeast Asia, are we talking sort of in the A range, the B range, or is it, you know, a scale of one to ten? How would you kind of assess that given the fact that we want to pay attention to these datapoints, but we also want to make sure that the headlines are kept in perspective, and we're viewing things in terms of how they were before and how they're evolved over multiple decades rather than just a few months or just one data point or two datapoints?
Captain Sarabjeet Parmar: That's a good point. In fact, the survey report of April 2024, which you mentioned on the State of Southeast Asia: it's a bit of a wakeup call, number one. But then, if you look at it, if the bilateral engagements are so strong, then this sort of is a pointer to India to say that, look, when you compare with other countries, perhaps this is where you will rank if the nation has to make a choice. And if strategic relevance – if I remember the figure, it is 5.04. We sort of placed India in the bottom three with New Zealand and Canada, and I don't know how good a feel good factor that will be, but considering that Canada is on the other side of the Pacific Ocean as far as the Indo-Pacific is concerned, and, of course, New Zealand is on the other side of Australia as we look at it from India.
So it's a sort of a wakeup call that if you are going to look at getting into competition without getting into a sort of conflict with other nations, China ranks very high. So, you know, that's sort of a call that says: alright, if China is considered a problem nation in the South China Sea, what merits it to rank so high? So I'll just give you an example. In India's financial year of 2022-2023, China crossed the US as India's largest trading partner with a trade deficit of $80 billion dollars, where US was number one before that, and we had an advantage of the trade deficit was in our favor. So now you are faced with a nation with that sort of economic heft, and BRI was one example I'd like to say about how things are panning out. Sri Lanka is one example and there are other nations into that debt trap. But the fact is that, if China delivers — and here we're talking about deliverables — if China delivers at a certain rate which is the lowest, then any nation would obviously want to go for it. The quality issues are separate. There are a lot of nations who are now complaining that the defense equipment which they procured from China has run into problems and Pakistan is one of them. Although they are all with their allies, friends with China. So how do you beat that? So on a one to one, if relations are good and I just get back to the figure of a $300 million credit line given to Vietnam too. What all can Vietnam take which will be worth $300 million, which will enhance its defense standing, which will enhance its capacity and capability? What is it that they will want from us? That's one. And number two is how sustainable is it? Which means that our own defense industry has to sort of keep pace with the requirements which are coming.
Numbers always matter. When you look at the defense industry, they're always looking at numbers because the more numbers, the more sales, the more profit. So it's a question that can we, say, compare ourselves with China? At today's point, I would say no, but we will in some time, hopefully, enter the top ten nations who export defense equipment. So that's one example. So economic health is important. But the other thing is that if we are looked upon as of little strategic value given the figures that the report states, then is there something wrong in our approach? You know, we stand with strategic autonomy. We don't believe in alliances. We believe in strategic relationship. But strategic relationships can do only that much to a certain point. To cross that line, you need then an alliance. There are certain— there are lots of things that alliances will give you which strategic relationships cannot. But that's the way we look at it as researchers and analysts. So is there a modicum of changing the manner of strategic relations, imbibe aspects that alliances provide without using the word alliance?
I think that's an approach that India should look at and which means that maybe taking a stronger stance, you know, getting back to the South China Sea, perhaps being more vocal about certain situations. What the nations are facing in the South China Sea is what we face on the land border with China. There is no difference. The only thing is land and water and then of course the elements are different but the nature of facing China remains the same. And only those nations who have a common border with China will perhaps understand it. And China's entry into the Indian Ocean region is a risk that has to happen. If you believe in freedom of navigation, you cannot just block Malacca Strait and say China not permitted. Goes against the customary and accepted international laws, and that's something that at least India would not like to do because it stands by its recognition of international laws and conventions. So perhaps there's a need to relook at these policies. Perhaps we need to engage better. Deliverables are important. We have faulted at some point in time of not delivering at the right time or not delivering at all. So that is, I think, something that we have overcome in the past, but it needs to be enhanced and improved. And although these studies do indicate certain things and how to increase the grading, well, you did ask me a question on a scale of one to ten. I would say in bilateral relationships, on a one to one relationship, I think we're doing very good, eight to nine. Because it's not only defense, it's economics, there is trade, there is culture. There are so many issues. People to people relations is another issue. And if you look at the volume of Indian tourists who are now going to Vietnam; a lot of global tourists go to Vietnam now and it's opened up. It's an indication of relations to come— we need to keep the foot on the pedal, need to keep improving, innovating, opening new areas of investment, even if it means that your bilateral relations with perhaps another nation, let's say with China, takes a little hit. I mean, how lower can it fall than it is right now? So we need to relook from time to time, our Act East Policy.
There is the cabinet committee on external affairs that in 2023 did a study of India's Neighborhood First policy. A number of recommendations are there. And if we see the state of India's neighborhood, it's just about okay. We've got Sri Lanka. We're supporting them. It acknowledges the effort put in by India, especially the credit line given after the debt issue with China. We have Bangladesh, which is in a pickle right now, and, of course, it's always good to have a friendly nation, friendly government in power, but, well, things happen. So how does India look at Bangladesh? And to give you a parallel, the example with relations with Malaysia. Relations with Malaysia around a decade over, all right, not so good. But now they've improved. And so when you have a friendly government in power, that's the time that you need to actually make progress. And if you're faced with, say, a government which is not too okay with you, then you need to build new relationships, build new bridges. I can give the example of Maldives. So we gave Maldives the area to maneuver because, of course, the election manifesto had a sort of an anti India element to it, but we give them space to maneuver. And anybody who engages with India knows that, they’re quite a good country to engage with. You know, we don't go back on many of our promises or we do deliver, we do help. We’re there. And again, as I said, it's a question of stability, security, and peace.
On again bilateral one to one, very good. But if India's standing in comparison with other nations is solo, then you are in a competition and you need to improve your standing and that's what foreign relations is all about. So there is work for us to do and there is scope for a lot of engagements and we go through the IPOI or we go through the Quad related or even if we go through the various ASEAN platforms, you know, the East Asia Summit or any others. Trilaterals. I'm a great fan of trilaterals. Perhaps trilaterals or minilaterals is the issue. So trilaterals is another way in which perhaps India's standing can be increased. And as I said, if I put on a bilateral scale of eight to nine, then in competition standards, if you go by the SEA report of April 2024, I'd peg it around two and three, but we can push it up to seven and eight, but it will take time.
“[I]f India's standing in comparison with other nations is solo, then you are in a competition and you need to improve your standing and that's what foreign relations is all about.”
FUTURE SOUTH CHINA SEA AND MARITIME FLASHPOINT SCENARIOS
ASEAN Wonk: That's a great point that you made, especially about viewing these relationships and engagements more comprehensively. Because even if I compare my own personal experience, going to Vietnam and the number of Indians you see on flights ten years ago relative to now, I think you can feel the change, the connectivity changes that are happening in the region. So viewing kind of defense-related developments as kind of isolated from the broader relationship is probably missing a lot of that picture as well. So it's a very integrated region and a very diverse and sophisticated one. So I appreciate the point that you made there. You sort of talked a little bit about gazing into the future with respect to some of these mechanisms include including mini laterals. And you also mentioned the South China Sea. And I'm wondering if we could pursue that a little bit. If we see sort of, you know, gazing a little bit into the future, you you mentioned this as well in your comments that India has been a little bit wary in terms of its rhetoric on the South China Sea historically. But we have seen of late India being a little bit more forthright. One development that happened quite recently a few months ago was when India's foreign minister Jaishankar made some comments during the Philippines stop of his wider visit to Southeast Asia that also included Malaysia and Singapore.
But I also want to sort of get to the other components you mentioned as well, the events and developments that are happening on the water beyond just the rhetoric. So if we're looking at things strategically and looking ahead, how do we think about India's role in the South China Sea, not just in terms of what it's doing with individual countries, but as you correctly pointed out, how does this interact with its minilateral pursuit, its Neighborhood First policy? Because in the balance of power logic, we are dealing with this notion that as we're seeing linkages between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, we do have China playing a lot more of a role in the Indian Ocean. And that also means that India is playing a larger role in the South China Sea as well. India has stakes there not just on defense, but also with respect to Vietnam, if you look at energy, for example. So there are various linkages that we're looking at in terms of China playing more of a role in the Indian Ocean, India playing more of a role in the South China Sea. Can I ask how you would view sort of different scenarios with respect to India's future engagement in the South China Sea within this kind of complex web of engagements that you talked about?
Captain Sarabjeet Parmar: So when you look at the South China Sea, essentially…
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INTRODUCTION
Our guest today is Ambassador Pham Quang Vinh, who has been one of Vietnam's leading diplomats, with key posts including deputy minister in the foreign ministry, ambassador to the United States, as well as several other roles, including with Vietnam's relations with ASEAN and Asia more generally. We will start our conversation today talking about Vietnam's recent hosting of the leaders of China, Russia, and the United States in a very active geopolitical year. Make sure you watch, listen, or read the full episode as we talk about a range of other subjects, including geoeconomic currents in key sectors like semiconductors, as well as the geopolitics of the South China Sea and the Mekong subregion.
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Note: The transcript that follows the above free clip preview has been lightly edited for clarity and organized into sections for ease of quick browsing. For all ASEAN Wonk Podcast episodes, full video and audio podcasts, along with edited and sectioned transcripts as well as block quotes, will be a premium product for our paying subscribers, but we will include a short free transcript preview and a clip for all readers to maintain accessibility. Paying subscribers can find the rest of the full transcript and the full video podcast right below the paywall. If you have not already, do consider subscribing, and, if you have already done so and like what you see and hear, do consider forwarding this to others as well who may be interested. Thank you for your support as always!
VIETNAM’S NEW FOREIGN POLICY PARTNERSHIP UPGRADES IN PERSPECTIVE
ASEAN Wonk: So welcome to the ASEAN Wonk Podcast, Ambassador Vinh. Thank you so much for joining us, and let's get into our conversation.
Ambassador Pham Quang Vinh: Thank you Prashanth.
ASEAN Wonk: We were just speaking a little bit earlier about this very active time in Vietnam's geopolitical picture, some of which I've had a chance to witness firsthand during my visits to Hanoi earlier this year as well as last year. And Vietnam is pretty interesting because it is the only country within the last year to have hosted leaders from the United States, China and Russia. And there have also been several upgrades in partnerships, including with Australia, with Japan, and with France very recently. That may not be surprising for those who know how active Vietnam is diplomatically. But it doesn't mean this doesn't deserve credit and attention because it's not very easy to do in terms of hosting these countries and upgrading these partnerships, as you well know, given the atmosphere of US China tensions, the Russia Ukraine war, and so on.
I know from our previous conversations, you've mentioned that you acknowledge this progress, but you also are continually looking for how these upgrades and these relationships actually evolve in terms of actual progress. Lots of developments, including the US elections and Vietnam's own upcoming Party Congress in 2026. So as a diplomat yourself, who has been involved very extensively in Vietnam's relationships, how do you think about the balance between acknowledging these inroads as well as how to sustain the momentum in Vietnam's relationships with these countries?
Ambassador Pham Quang Vinh: Actually, generally, we can say that diplomatic relations with the countries in the world and in the region will be very much important to Vietnam. The two key points that we have now in our country is peace and development. There are two keys. So trying to have this region as a region of peace and growth will be very much important to Vietnam. Vietnam's economy depends also on the supply chains and the the trade arrangements with other countries in the region and in the in the world, especially the three very important centers of trade and economic development in the world: Asia, Europe, and North America.
So, generally speaking, Vietnam wants to deepen relationship with key partners. And our priorities for diplomatic relations among the countries in the world will continue to be those of neighboring and regional countries and the major countries, including the US, China, Japan, the European Union, and other countries. So the momentum that has been created so far, especially in recent years, has created an environment conducive for our efforts of pushing further our economic development towards the goals that we have set for 2030 and 2045. That is to bring our living standards to a higher level and also our economy to a better quality. So this is very much an ultimate goal of us years before and in the very much near future.
“Vietnam's economy depends also on the supply chains…especially the three very important centers of trade and economic development in the world: Asia, Europe, and North America.”
ASEAN Wonk: Great. Thanks a lot, Ambassador Vinh. That's very important context that you mentioned because even as we talk about these big geopolitical relationships with the United States, China, Russia, and so on and so forth, with all of the countries in Southeast Asia, as you know, the imperative of economic growth and providing for citizens and the people of these countries is extremely important in terms of a priority. I wanted to follow up on that notion that you mentioned. So within Southeast Asia, Vietnam is actually quite an interesting case because Vietnam has a hierarchy of diplomatic partnerships. So the highest level being the comprehensive strategic partnership, as you know, where the United States has entered, but also other countries, Japan, for example, within the last year or so. With all of these diplomatic upgrades and relationships, how would you encourage us to think about the significance of these partnerships? Because other countries in Southeast Asia are doing these as well. Often, there are a lot of questions that I get — sometimes even when we cover these on ASEAN Wonk — saying, I mean, how important are all of these? How significant are each of them? And how should we understand them in terms of the substance versus the symbolism?
Ambassador Pham Quang Vinh: Let me talk a little bit about the foreign policies of Vietnam. A consistency in our foreign policy is that we want to be friends with all countries. Number two is that we have priorities for regional and major power countries. And these will be very much important for Vietnam in terms of peace, security, economic development, and including also our role in the world. If we can have good relations with these key partners, that will be very much important for Vietnam, for its own economy, for its own security, and for its engagement with the region and the world. So, let's see. While we broaden our relationship with all countries of the world, we are having a focus on these key partners. Now, in our system, it has been developing over the years that we have the highest level is comprehensive strategic partnership, and we have a strategic partnership and then comprehensive partnership. Now today, we have more than thirty countries belonging to the highest levels that comprise of comprehensive and strategic level. But the highest level in this category is comprehensive strategic level, and we have eight partners, as you just mentioned, from China to the US to Japan to Australia to India to Russia to South Korea as well. And very recently, we have France.
And this is very much not only a politically symbolic issue. Certainly, symbolic importance continues to be crucial, because that signifies Vietnam accords great importance to relationship with these partners. But more important than that is the substance. For example, these key partners are playing a very important role in economic development of Vietnam. For example, we have two way trade with China, for example, over $200 billion. And we have the US, number two in our economic relations and about $123 billion two way trade. And the US continues to be the biggest export market for Vietnam, which is worth of more than $100 billion. But at the same time, we see these key partners, these major powers and key partners are very much crucial to cooperation and peace in our region Southeast Asia and the Asia Pacific. So bilateral relations will continue to be important, but we consider them very much important in the region, especially in the context of relations with ASEAN and contributing to peace and stability and development in this region as well.
Relations with, for example, China, are not only trade, but we have a lot of other activities including investment, including also possibility of infrastructure projects in our country as well. And for the US, one key issue that has just been adopted last year when we have upgraded our relationship to comprehensive strategic level is about technologies and innovation, including the semiconductor sector, for example. This is very much new to our relationship with other countries. So the US is now the first to work with us in this in terms of some sensitive matters. And second, we are very much fond of energy transformation and also green transition. So these partners, including European partners, Japan, US, or China, will be in cooperation with us in these all areas. So I think bilaterally and regionally and multilaterally, these key partners at the highest level, they are very much important not only to the growth of Vietnam, but also to peace and development in the region as well.
“This is very much new to our relationship with other countries. So the US is now the first to work with us in this in terms of some sensitive matters.”
VIETNAM’S ENGAGEMENT WITH MINILATERAL INSTITUTIONS AND NEW REGIONAL DIPLOMATIC INITIATIVES
ASEAN Wonk: Great. Thanks, Ambassador Vinh. And you mentioned there, as you talked about the bilateral relationships, putting things in regional perspective and also including the multilateral aspect, which is very important. One of the other things that I would say is a diplomatic achievement for Vietnam is the fact that Vietnam just hosted, this year, the first iteration of the ASEAN Future Forum, which is the first mechanism on multilateral engagement of its kind that is happening on ASEAN in mainland Southeast Asia. And this is pretty remarkable considering when Vietnam was first admitted into ASEAN, as you know, in 1995, Vietnam was actually a source of anxiety for the initial members of ASEAN. But it has evolved from that status to now being one of the most active and creative members within ASEAN, including boosting some of the forums like the ASEAN Defense Ministers’ Meeting. And now hosting this forum as well, which is which is quite important. And my understanding is there's going be another iteration of that.
We just saw ASEAN convene as well in Laos. And ASEAN actually acknowledged the ASEAN Future Forum as being part of the community-building vision for ASEAN out to 2045 as well. So quite a remarkable achievement. Vietnam is also active in some of these other — we can call them different things, plurilateral or minilateral arrangements — CPTPP, for example, but also, I did note with interest, for example, Vietnam recently joined the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure that India has been part of. So Vietnam is quite active in this minilateral space as well. And then there are other minilaterals that Vietnam is not formally a part of, like the Quad, AUKUS, so on and so forth. I'm wondering, given your diplomatic experience and having seen Vietnam's diplomatic relationships evolve over the past few decades, how do you think about Vietnam's future role in terms of balancing these multilateral arrangements with the bilateral partnerships you talked about, but also some of these other minilaterals because it's a very active landscape. So how do we think about that in terms of Vietnam's engagements?
Ambassador Pham Quang Vinh: First, let's put in this context. Vietnam is supporting and has been supporting multilateralism. And, in this region of the world, we think that ASEAN is very much important. ASEAN has been playing crucial roles in peace, development, and community building. But at the same time, ASEAN has been establishing and developing institutional linkages with the major powers in this region. And I think that all our partners, including the major powers, have been supporting ASEAN. The way that we in the region are doing it is how to engage the major powers and partners in developing this region into a zone of peace and growth. That is very much important.
Point two is that we think that there can be a number of ways that we can work together. ASEAN is one. But at the same time, there have been in place here a number of other multilateral and regional arrangements that contributed to the common goal of peace and development in the region. The Mekong, for example, we have a lot of institutional arrangements in this region and subregional arrangements on other issues that also have been in place. So now we think multilayered arrangements will be very much important for this region of diversity and differences. So they are complementary to each other, complementary also to the overall role of ASEAN that we have been supporting.
Vietnam has been proposing and has been doing the inaugural ASEAN Future Forum with the view that we think, number one, ASEAN is important for this region. Number two, the world has been changing, including in geopolitics, in the way of development, in the context of technology advancement and also the lack of effective governance in the world and in the region. So trying to attract views from different sectors of the society in this region will be very much important in contributing to the government-to-government dialogue and discussions within the context of ASEAN. So ASEAN Future Forum is part of a process to contribute to to ASEAN, and Vietnam has played a role in that. You mentioned it correctly that we will be doing it again next year, for example.
And you mentioned why we can, at the same time, try different levels of multilateral and minilateral arrangements. That's because, number one, we set the same goal. Number two, we want to have multilayered arrangements that complement each other for Vietnam's economic development and for the region's growth as well. But for some minilateral arrangements, we may not be directly involved or there may be some political complexities that we need to consider again in the context of the countries here in the region. ASEAN and including Vietnam also is very much sensitive on the question of major power rivalry. Our policy is not to take sides. But if we just say “not to take sides” it is not enough; I think that we want to engage with all major powers in a good way in contributing to peace and development in the region and in contributing to cooperation between each country, including Vietnam, with these major powers. If we can do all that at the same time with all the major powers and key partners, it will be very good.
Number three is that there are differences among the members of ASEAN in how to approach the different minilateral mechanisms or arrangements in the region. So let's see a little bit. But to me personally, if any institutional process can be perceived as politically sensitive, let's pick issues that we can cooperate on if it is politically sensitive to engage with the whole institution. We can engage with individual members of the different regional or military arrangements in the region. For example, you mentioned about climate change, resilient supply chains, or critical minerals, and also semiconductors, for example. That would be very much good that I myself personally want to see governments in the region, including Vietnam, to engage. If they consider the institutions here and there and be kind of politically sensitive, they can pick up the issues to engage with one or two or several members of those arrangements. And there are resources available made by those arrangements that we can tap on.
“If they consider the institutions here and there and be kind of politically sensitive, they can pick up the issues to engage with one or two or several members of those arrangements. And there are resources available made by those arrangements that we can tap on.”
VIETNAM’S GEOECONOMIC CHALLENGES AMID “CHINA + 1,” SUPPLY CHAIN SHIFTS AND SECTOR POSITIONING INCLUDING CHIPS
ASEAN Wonk: Great. Thanks, Ambassador Vinh. And I share your perspective on the fact that, when we're thinking about alignments and which institutions a country may or may not join, we should be very flexible about how these partnerships occur. Some of it may be over joining of certain institutions, others may be cooperation on certain issues….
Ambassador Pham Quang Vinh: The Quad, they have only four to call if the Quad. So if some other country joins, they will call it the Five Eyes or whatever.
ASEAN Wonk: Right. And I think throughout Southeast Asia, at least in my travels, I detect among officials there is this notion that if we're cooperating on certain institutions, let's be flexible. Maybe it's on a particular issue. Maybe it's in a more informal sense. And I would also point out I'm very struck you mentioned the Quad. Yes, there there are some — as you pointed out correctly — sensitivities within parts of ASEAN and Southeast Asia about officially joining or engaging with the Quad on some areas. At the same time, it's also striking to me that if you look at Southeast Asia, all Southeast Asian countries have increased relations with the United States, India, Japan, and Australia over the past few years. So even though there might not be formal engagements…
Ambassador Pham Quang Vinh: I can mention the other one thing is that ASEAN have raised its level of partnership with these countries and China to the highest level.
ASEAN Wonk: Exactly, that's right as you pointed out: so it’s not accidental, right? And so I appreciate your perspective there on us being flexible about these alignments and institutions. I wanted to shift a little bit to what you were mentioning earlier about geoeconomics. That’s another really interesting angle where Vietnam has been making a lot of inroads. It's one of the countries that is in the headlines a lot in terms of countries that could benefit from shifting supply chains — the so called China + 1 strategies in areas like semiconductors, for example. By one count, Vietnam is actually one of the top ten countries in terms of attracting foreign investment. Within the last year, the IMF has listed Vietnam as one of these so-called connector countries: so as we're thinking about US-China derisking, Vietnam is actually seen as a country that's able to bridge some of these divides between major powers.
But at the same time, we're also seeing a lot of scrutiny actually on some of China's economic activities moving to third countries, including Vietnam. And we have this interesting context of US enlarging small-yard, high-fence restrictions. And I understand from some of the Vietnamese economic officials that I've spoken to that even in semiconductors, Vietnam, like other countries — like Malaysia, for example, India also — there's a lot of work to be done in terms of areas like talent, for example: getting the necessary recruits and educational institutions developed. How do you see Vietnam’s evolving geoeconomic story playing out in this more complex and fractured global landscape? There's a lot of lots of positive things that are going on. But it's also a very difficult and challenging economic environment for any country to be operating in as well.
Ambassador Pham Quang Vinh: Many of us in the region, Vietnam particularly…
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INTRODUCTION
Our guest today is Dr. Ken Jimbo, who is a professor at Keio University and a renowned commentator on Japan's foreign security policy as well as wider Indo-Pacific geopolitics and geoeconomics. He's previously been a policy advisor to various parts of the Japanese government, including the Ministry of Defense and the National Security Secretariat.
We'll start our conversation talking about Japan's evolving approach to the Indo Pacific and Southeast Asia amid its ongoing election cycle and the future agenda for the ASEAN-Japan comprehensive strategic partnership. Make sure you watch, listen, or read the full episode as we go through a range of other subjects, including hype around an Asian NATO, Japan’s growing regional security role, South China Sea dynamics and the future of the US-Japan alliance amid emerging minilaterals.
To receive full ASEAN Wonk posts and support our work, consider a paid subscription for $5 a month/$50 a year through the button below. For more on pricing for institutions, groups and discounted categories, visit this page.
Note: The transcript that follows the above free clip preview has been lightly edited for clarity and organized into sections for ease of quick browsing. For all ASEAN Wonk Podcast episodes, full video and audio podcasts, along with edited and sectioned transcripts as well as block quotes, will be a premium product for our paying subscribers, but we will include a short free transcript preview and a clip for all readers to maintain accessibility. Paying subscribers can find the rest of the full transcript and the full video podcast right below the paywall. If you have not already, do consider subscribing, and, if you have already done so and like what you see and hear, do consider forwarding this to others as well who may be interested. Thank you for your support as always!
JAPAN’S ELECTIONS AND EVOLVING INDO-PACIFIC STRATEGY IN CONTEXT
ASEAN Wonk: So let's get into it Professor Jimbo. We are speaking at a very interesting point as we were just talking about earlier in Japanese politics with Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba just having won the election race of the Liberal Democratic Party or LDP and Japan having an election on October 27. I wanted to come back to that a little bit later on specific policies because you've commented quite extensively on some of them. But if we could start with the subject of continuity and change of Japan's Indo-Pacific approach and the implications for Southeast Asia because you've been a longtime adviser to various parts of the Japanese government over time as we've seen a lot of changes in the Indo-Pacific landscape. Now there'll certainly be some continuity in aspects of Japan's approach between administrations. We saw this conversation a little bit when we had the transition from Prime Minister Abe to Prime Minister Kishida. But I wanted to ask, what would you say in particular about any places that we might see some change or perhaps even additions or unique features in Japan's approach to the Indo Pacific and Southeast Asia – in particular when we're talking about the latest elections, including the upcoming general elections – that could take shape in late 2024 as well as early 2025?
Dr. Ken Jimbo: Well, thanks, first of all, for kind invitation to this program. And answering your question, I would like to mention that there have been two major trends that Japan has been pursuing in past five to ten years. One is the increasing awareness of the severe security environment surrounding Japan and the rise of Chinese military power, but also the nuclear missile developments in North Korea that pull Japan into the immediate kind of threat perception in the Korean peninsula. And as well the reassertive Russia in the Far East, especially after Russia's invasion to Ukraine. And seemingly, those three fronts of the Japanese defense policy, you cannot really have (one-size-fits-all) type of approaches because each of them needs to be customized in a way to prepare the different nature and characterization of the risks and threat.
And that came to the major decision which was decided in December 2022 when we adopted the National Security Strategy with three so-called strategic documents [National Security Strategy; National Defense Strategy; and Defense Buildup Program] where we have decided to double the size of the defense budget and procure the new weapon systems – which was unprecedented in Japan's post-war configuration – including the adoption of the long-range strike missiles or the counter strike capability. And I think that that really creates Japan's new phase in our defense reorientation and commitments, and that also leads to the new configuration of the US-Japan security relations. So that we are now discussing about the new command and control structure that there are so many domains that we need to work together. Not only the extension of so-called gray zone issues. You know, ten, fifteen years ago, we were talking about Senkaku and how the gray zone dispute will evolve into much serious conflict. But now, we're talking about a much higher end of escalation, which presumably looks at the Taiwan Strait as a potential contingency that we need to prepare for. So this is one set of trends, which you can see as a continuity, of the Japanese security policy.
But another perspective, which may I think resonate with what we're going to talk about today is the wider spectrum of the Indo Pacific engagements. And that has started since the Abe administration when Abe promoted this concept on the free and open Indo Pacific starting from 2016. It has once been viewed as like a “how to counter China” balancing type of context and how we can really develop the “like-minded states coalition” type of the concept. But Abe himself transformed in how to engage China in 2018 and 2019, a time frame where FOIP – free and open Indo Pacific concept – has been moderated into much more, I think, a collaborative concept with Chinese international outreach including BRI [Belt and Road Initiative] and many of their concepts. And that has been inherited by Suga and Kishida to [a great] extent. And especially during these days, when you look at Kishida's New Pan for FOIP, which was, you know, addressed in India in March 2023, that he has emphasized more on the inclusive perspective of how Japanese FOIP through the Japanese overseas development assistance and connectivity projects and how to encourage the private sector to be involved without too much kind of Western ideologies attached. And this is, I think, Japan's more nuanced approaches with the increasing awareness that the world is bound to be divided, especially after the Ukraine war. And then Japan should be the one who needs to bridge such kind of gaps between the Western approaches [and] the growing notion of the global south.
“And then Japan should be the one who needs to bridge such kind of gaps between the Western approaches [and] the growing notion of the global South.”
ASSESSING JAPAN’S COMPETITIVENESS AMID GROWING MAJOR POWER INVOLVEMENT IN SOUTHEAST ASIA AND US-CHINA RIVALRY
ASEAN Wonk: That's a very rich perspective there. And you noted, in addition to the Indo-Pacific, some of Japan's own domestic security trends and changes in its approach. I'm wondering if we could talk a little bit about, building off of that, Japan's own competitive position in Southeast Asia and the Indo Pacific. And I think in Southeast Asia, one of the most sort of commonly cited insights in the annual Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS Yusof-Ishak Institute) survey that comes out every year is the fact that Japan consistently ranks as the most trusted power in that report when they analyze major powers. At the same time, I think even policymakers in countries like Japan, the US, are also noting that even as there is sort of distrust of China, there is a very clear recognition over the past few years that irrespective of how much China is trusted or not, it is becoming a more and more influential power in Southeast Asia.
And in particular, one of the things that we're also seeing in this domain is the fact that as we have these perceptions about trust and distrust, we had events last year and developments in the Japan-ASEAN relationship, including the commemorative summit that was held in Tokyo in December last year. And this notion of “trusted partners” again came to the fore between Japan and Southeast Asia. And I think in the region there was very much a recognition that Japan was capitalizing on this, but also the other phrase that was really used that was interesting was the notion of “co-creation.” That Japan and ASEAN and Southeast Asia would jointly embark on this journey rather than something being, you know, Japan sort of imposing a vision, which sometimes we see with respect to other powers – perceived or real – with respect to the United States, for example. So that was noted on the positive side.
On the challenges front, we are also seeing even some Japanese officials and diplomats saying that Japan needs to step up its own game in Southeast Asia. Japan's former ambassador to Indonesia, Masafumi Ishii, has talked about the fact that Japan's mechanisms like ODA have added a lot of value to the region, but there needs to be a little bit more sort of creativity, flexibility, responsiveness with respect to that. And then there are the sort of realities that you talked about, which is when we talk about the security environment, there's been a massive deterioration over the past few years. And as we think about first island chain strategies, we also have to slowly start thinking about contingencies in the second island chain and what we're doing there as well and so on. How would you sort of frame Japan's competitiveness in Southeast Asia as a major power? And what are some of its strengths if we're thinking about this sort of US-China competition or great power competition versus its limitations or challenges there?
Dr. Ken Jimbo: Well, firstly, I think you have covered quite a bit comprehensively about what is at stake in Japan ASEAN relationship. Certainly, we need to take full advantage of the high level of the trust that we earned in past decades. And since the Fukuda doctrine in 1977, Japan's own approach to ASEAN has been, I think, well-coordinated in a way to how to overcome the World War Two legacies into the fully trusted relationship. And Japan's own approach to ASEAN – which I would say we are not always bringing in the US, Japan, or Western perspective into ASEAN, but ASEAN as autonomous independent actor to be trusted through the expansion of the economic interest, you know, like widen supply chains throughout Southeast Asia. And then [much] of Japan's own approach is to support ASEAN's own agenda, like building of the more resilient ASEAN political foundations, its own economic development, and not bringing in too much ideological, I think, screening processes into this. So in that sense that, you know, ASEAN might think that Japan understands more than some of those external powers in a major power relationship. And that is, I think, a comparative strength that Japan has earned in in the past decades.
But as you mentioned there has been a lot of challenges that both sides need to, I think, adjust. First of all, ASEAN is growing and ASEAN is not really that single unit that has been exposed to the outside world. Indonesia has its own preferences as a G-20 member. And Malaysia is now applying for the BRICS. And so they do have multiple faces of the identity issues which are involved. ASEAN divide is still a huge issue that is taking place. But I think that what Japan is preferring for ASEAN to be is ASEAN being strong, vibrant, and also has its own strategic autonomy, which is preferential for the countries like Japan to the extent that Western powers can be conducive in engaging in ASEAN. And so that in that context, Japan needs to nudge many of those ASEAN agenda items to coexist with Japan's so-called Indo-Pacific plans. So we are encouraged by ASEAN adoption of the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo Pacific several years ago. And so it created lots of platforms. Although we do have slightly different priorities in the concept, but it is the matter that ASEAN has committed to this concept which is the great news.
“[A]SEAN is growing and ASEAN is not really that single unit that has been exposed to the outside world. Indonesia has its own preferences as a G-20 member. And Malaysia is now applying for the BRICS. And so they do have multiple faces of the identity issues which are involved.”
But secondly, what I found in the last Commemorative Summit is that there has also been ASEAN's request for Japan to accommodate to the ASEAN's new reality. And that is rapidly-changing ASEAN industrial structures and the political priorities into it. Because if Japan tried to play, you know, same old game that it created since 1990s and 2000s, you will lose in the new economic structure that ASEAN is now cultivating. For example, electric vehicles. I don't think that we are competitive enough in Southeast Asia. Digital economy solutions and e-commerce, I don't think Japan is very visible in those arenas as well. So…we also have to upgrade and adopt into the new ASEAN reality as well. But overall, as you mentioned Japan and ASEAN have a lot of potential to move things forward, and we also have to take advantage of the relative, I think, preferences of ASEAN's perception towards Japan.
ISHIBA’S ASIAN NATO, JAPAN’S ELECTIONS AND CALIBRATING MINILATERAL, BILATERAL AND MULTILATERAL ENGAGEMENT
ASEAN Wonk: Yeah, that’s great. There was an ASEAN Japan experts panel last year with respect to the 50th anniversary and they flagged a lot of the issues that you mentioned, including supply chains, economic resilience and so on and so forth. It is really encouraging to see Japan take a very comprehensive approach to understanding Southeast Asia and ASEAN because, as you noted, there are very complex realities including changing dynamics within Southeast Asia and ASEAN that feed into developments including the BRICS conversation you mentioned. I'm wondering if we could turn to the security side. We were chatting about this a little bit earlier. We are seeing a lot of attention in the headlines to Ishiba's notion of an Asian NATO, which is, of course not a new concept. He has a former defense background, so it's not surprising that he has views on this. And I think he's also mentioned in parliament for example that this is not something that he expects himself to take off anytime soon. Obviously, in the Southeast Asian context, even though there are many minilateral mechanisms that the Philippines is engaging with, it is more of an outlier than the sort of the mainstream position in the region where the region is mostly comfortable with looser alignments rather than tighter ones. That said, I wanted to ask you if you could comment a little bit on that. More broadly beyond this concept of an Asian NATO, I do think we are in a very interesting time in the security environment. We're seeing a proliferation of mechanisms like AUKUS, US-Japan-ROK, US-Japan-Philippines, Quad elevation to a leaders level, and so on and so forth. And at the same time, as you mentioned, Japan is taking a much more active security role through mechanisms like Official Security Assistance. So how do you see this notion of collective security fitting in with Japan's configuration of engaging with minilateral institutions, but also bilateral institutions like US-Japan alliance and the multilateral context, ASEAN, which you talked about as well?
Dr. Jimbo: Sure. We have experienced quite an interesting period of time immediately after Prime Minister Ishiba was elected….
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INTRODUCTION
Our guest today is Dr. Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a professor and senior fellow at the Institute of Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn University in Thailand. He is regarded as one of Thailand and Southeast Asia's foremost foreign policy thinkers and commentators and he's written and spoken widely on a range of topics we write about on ASEAN Wonk, including Thailand, the Mekong subregion, and ASEAN.
We start our conversation talking about major power competition in the Mekong subregion in mainland Southeast Asia and the future of post coup Myanmar. Make sure you watch, listen, or read the full episode as we go through a range of other subjects including Thailand's position amid US-China competition as well as ASEAN's future outlook.
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Note: The transcript that follows the above free clip preview has been lightly edited for clarity and organized into sections for ease of quick browsing. For all ASEAN Wonk Podcast episodes, full video and audio podcasts, along with edited and sectioned transcripts as well as block quotes, will be a premium product for our paying subscribers, but we will include a short free transcript preview and a clip for all readers to maintain accessibility. Paying subscribers can find the rest of the full transcript and the full video podcast right below the paywall. If you have not already, do consider subscribing, and, if you have already done so and like what you see and hear, do consider forwarding this to others as well who may be interested. Thank you for your support as always!
THAILAND FOREIGN POLICY IN CONTEXT
So welcome to the podcast, Thitinan. Thank you for joining us. And let's start, if we can, on Thailand's geoeconomic and geopolitical outlook after a very event-filled few weeks in August, including the replacement of Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin with Paetongtarn Shinawatra and the breakup of the Move Forward Party as well, which won the most number of seats in Thailand's recent elections. So amid Thailand's political instability over the past two decades, at times it seems there’s a risk of a sort of creeping numbness about how the story is portrayed. Sometimes almost a sense of deja vu: another political party gets dissolved, another prime minister gets replaced.
You've actually written that this is not a particularly useful lens to understand where Thailand is today. This is more of Thailand being in a case of uncharted territory rather than deja vu and things happening all over again. And you've also written that even in terms of geopolitics and geoeconomics, there has been this notion in the past of sort of Teflon Thailand. But if you look at the economic growth trajectory of Thailand, relative to growth rates of, say, seven percent in previous decades, we're now looking at growth rates that have been reduced to more like three percent rather than seven percent. So having watched Thailand for decades, where are you and where should we be in terms of a scale of one to ten in terms of how alarmed or concerned we should be about Thailand's geopolitical and geoeconomic future given that domestic political trajectory?
Dr. Thitinan Pongsudhirak: Well, for Thai people, I think that we are very alarmed and concerned about Thailand being stuck in a kind of a standstill, in a pattern of holding ground, not moving forward over the last twenty years, really. I mean, it's been so dramatic. We had two military coups in 2006 and 2014. We had street protests, color-coded: yellow shirts in 2005, 2006, 2008, and then red shirts 2009, 2010, and then yellow shirts again, 2013, 2014. Two military coups, endless street protests, and then the three constitutions, 1997, 2007, 2017, and then the multiple party dissolutions. Winning parties in Thailand — political parties that won elections were dissolved — in 2007 Thai Rak Thai; 2008, another party aligned with Thaksin Shinawatra, second time dissolved in December 2008. And then, fast forward to the coup in 2014, and then you had election in 2019. Another party dissolved, Thai Raksa Chart. And in 2020, another major popular party which came in third, Future Forward Party of young people, a new kind of party for progressive reforms, structural reforms. It also was dissolved in February 2020, igniting protests throughout 2020 with young people taking to the streets and so on, and they were suppressed.
And then move forward to 2023 election. Again, the successor to the Future Forward Party became the Move Forward Party. It won the elections, securing 151 out of 500 seats, beating the Thaksin Pheu Thai party for the first time. The Thaksin party lost for the first time. And then Move Forward Party espoused structural reforms of the military, the monarchy, the economy, politics, bureaucracy in a wide-ranging reform agenda. It's a kind of agenda that Thailand needs to move forward into the world. As long as Thailand is stuck at home like this, it cannot move in the world. It can only go day by day. It can only kind of survive and crisis manage in foreign affairs, international situations, international challenges, but it cannot take a leading role. It cannot be proactive when it's so stuck at home.
“As long as Thailand is stuck at home like this, it cannot move in the world.”
So this agenda of the Move Forward became a threat to the establishment, especially to the monarchy and the military. And the monarchy, you know, the agenda is to reform the monarchy, to amend the lese majeste law, the draconian law. And for that pledge before the election, the Move Forward Party was dissolved again by the Constitutional Court. We had a lot of drama just in August alone, but the drama is repetitive. It's recurrent. It's a kind of drama we've seen over the last two decades. Party dissolution. On August 7, Move Forward was banned. Its leaders were banned for ten years from politics. And then one week later, the sitting prime minister from the Pheu Thai party, Srettha Thavisin, also was removed from office.
So now you have the daughter of Thaksin Shinawatra now is the new prime minister. There's been a setback because now the new government would need time to be formed, and the cabinet would need time to be vetted. And, you know, I think that it's difficult now to deny that what's at stake at home in Thailand is a constitutional order that's being contested. And the role of the military, the monarchy, judiciary within this constitutional order remains to be determined. I think that's what all this political inciting, protests, coups, military coups, and judicial interventions have been about. It's been about the role of the monarchy and the military, especially the monarchy within the constitutional order. And it is out of sync because it is very powerful but not so accountable. And hence, the move to reform these traditional institutions from the Cold War — the military, monarchy, bureaucracy, judiciary — is really the the sticking point. It's really the crux of the matter in Thailand, in Thai domestic politics. And moving forward, Thaksin also was brought back from exile. Paetongtarn is prime minister, but he also is a shadow prime minister. And we will see if the powers that be allow Thailand [to move forward] now that they've reset the post-election political situation by removing Srettha but also dissolving the Move Forward threat.
The Move Forward Party now has regrouped under the Prachachon Party, People's Party. It is in the opposition. So less of a threat in opposition, but the agenda remains a threat because it's a reform agenda. But now we will see if the powers that be allow the Pheu Thai government with Thaksin overshadowing it to actually implement policies and move Thailand forward even incrementally. If not, if the powers that be are determined to keep political parties weak and the government's kind of unstable and off balance, then Thailand will not be moving ahead and everything will suffer. The economy, I think we're seeing signs of stagnation. We're seeing signs of political decay. People don't respect the traditional institutions the way they used to. And we will see more of that. And for foreign policy, this is consequential and far-reaching because how can Thailand do anything in the world when it's so stuck at home, when it's so contentious at home? It cannot take a leading role in ASEAN in any fashion, let alone the broader international arena. So I think, you know, Thai foreign policy is really a function of what happens here at home.
MYANMAR CIVIL WAR FUTURES AND IMPLICATIONS FOR THAILAND AND ASEAN
ASEAN Wonk: Right. And I think it's a very important point that you make about the linkage between domestic political developments and Thailand's ability to lead abroad. And I wanted to ask: you've been a very keen observer of the situation in post-coup Myanmar, which obviously is very concerning. Beyond worries of sort of a failed state at the heart of Asia, which is at the very far end in terms of scenarios, there is a really increasing risk of state fragmentation as non-state actors assert their role. I had a chance to see the cross-border implications of this firsthand from across Thai border last year as well. And it really is very important for us to sort of take a view of an importance of a wide variety of actors, not just the SAC, not just the junta, not just other states and ASEAN itself as a grouping. And you've written extensively about this. There are also other worrying scenarios that the region is sort of worried about. For example, the junta at some point just holding sham elections in parts of the country, and then calling a few of its friends — the remaining friends it has — to legitimize this. And that doesn't really solve any of the problems in terms of the people in the country. But how are you thinking about some of the scenarios and and their likelihoods in Myanmar in the next one to two years, what are the things that we should be looking for as well in terms of signposts?
Dr. Thitinan Pongsudhirak: Well, Myanmar, since the coup in 2021, February 2021, has spiraled. There's a civil war, violent. Staging a coup was one thing, but consolidating power after the coup has failed. So it's the first successful coup that is failing, which means that the the military junta, the State Administration Council, has not been able to consolidate its power and it's actually been losing territory to a coalition of resistance groups led by the National Unity Government, but also the People's Defense Force and crucially, the ethnic armed organizations, the ethnic armies around the borderland regions. These borderland states are on the rim of Myanmar, and you have Rakhine State, Chin State, all the way up to Kachin, Shan state, down to Karenni, Karen state, Mon state. So all around the borders with Bangladesh and India and China and Thailand, all those states now are relatively increasingly autonomous. Moving forward, the SAC, the military is losing more and more ground, but it's holding out in the Burma Myanmar heartland, Naypyidaw capital, Mandalay, Yangon. So no borderland states now are under control really of the junta but the main heartland areas.
So I think that moving forward, we'll see different avenues possible. One would be that the NUG-led coalition prevails, and this means that the military junta will collapse. It might not be a precipitous, dramatic collapse like the fall Saigon, but it might be kind of an atrophy, which means that it just keeps losing territory. It loses more manpower, no new recruits, and then it runs out of ammunition. You know, it's been holding out by using air power, artillery and tanks. But eventually, something will have to give. So it could be that the military will lose and then the NUG-led coalition will win together with the PDF and the ethnic EAOs, ethnic armies. And then the NUG will be able to strike a compromise with the EAOs, the PDF and what's left of the Tatmadaw of the military. And that would be maybe the aspirational outcome. I think this would be the outcome under a federal democratic union that the NUG has been advocating, espousing. And the international community would also like to see a return to a semblance of stability that prevailed during the decade of reform progress and opening 2011 to the coup in February 2021.
Another scenario would be that the military holds out. This would drag on. It already has been for more than three years with armor, artillery and air power. The military could hang on and hold out for more months, especially with help from maybe China — to a degree, Russia, less of a help now — but, you know, the junta still has a lot of arms, a big arsenal to utilize to keep the resistance forces at bay. And this could drag on for another year, two years even. And that means more violence, more deaths, but maybe that will hold. And then they might even try to hold elections in the months ahead. And then it will have no legitimacy, no credibility. They will hope that it'll be a fait accompli, but it's a decreasing option. It's a decreasing chance because they keep losing territory. They've already lost all legitimacy. Their credibility within ASEAN is a big question mark because the junta leader, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, has not been allowed to attend to take part in the ASEAN-related summits. So no legitimacy, no credibility, losing ground, you know, hard to see how they can hold any kind of election with any legitimacy. But they might try. So that could be a kind of a protracted, intractable kind of civil war moving forward.
“And then they might even try to hold elections in the months ahead…they will hope that it’ll be a fait accompli…”
Another scenario would be the resistance coalition — and they call this now a revolution against a military dictatorship — could triumph, could prevail, but it will not be led by just the NUG. But the military will lose more ground and eventually will lose authority. And Myanmar will be a different kind of country. No more SAC, but not NUG in the lead. The EAOs, ethnic armies, will try to administer their own states and you have this kind of fragmented new country with some inchoate rudimentary kind of central authority under NUG perhaps. And NUG, I have to say, has not been compelling enough with the visible leadership that can show both domestic constituencies and also international community that it can lead the way forward. So a central authority in this scenario would be not strong. And then you would have a strong borderland states — autonomy within Rakhine, Kachin, Shan state, Karen state, Chin state up to a point. And then you would have a new kind of country that is fragmented that will have to be renegotiated, but not smooth and nowhere near what we saw as a country before the coup in 2021. And this would leave open the space for India, China and Thailand to influence along its borders. This would be a kind of very motley, unstable, new country with a weak central authority.
So I hope that we will get some kind of a first scenario, a compromise led by NUG, but with participation from the ethnic armies, ethnic leaders in the spirit of the reforms that prevailed in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, and maybe some kind of return of that decade of compromise. But we also have to be mindful that we could end up with a very messy situation whereby Myanmar becomes a vulcanized, fragmented and unstable. And the cradle of transnational crime, drug trafficking, human trafficking. All kinds of things that could go along there could impinge on the regional states, and also the international community.
INTENSIFYING US-CHINA COMPETITION AND THAILAND’S MAJOR POWER BALANCE
ASEAN Wonk: Right. And I think the realities and the scenarios that you sketched out point to the fact that there are very complex series of realities in Myanmar. And and it's important to look not just at the aggregate actors at the very top level, but also subnational actors, non-state actors in a very diverse landscape, which has broader implications for Southeast Asia because what happens in Myanmar rarely stays in Myanmar alone. So that's something which is a really important point. I wonder if we could also pivot to the issue of something you've already addressed before, which is the future of Thailand's position amid US-China competition which is intensifying. As a US ally which also has cultivated close relations with China, Thailand's position is obviously being very carefully watched, even though — like other Southeast Asian countries — it's not entirely helpful to always view Thailand's foreign relations just in terms of that binary lens. I'm wondering how you think about Thailand's more challenging domestic political situation as affecting its broader geopolitical and geoeconomic orientation when it comes to this topic of US-China competition.
I mean, there is this tendency to sort of look at individual decisions, like the decision to try to buy Chinese submarines, the recent application to join BRICS, for example. And, of course, that's part of the story, although I would point out just like in the case of other Southeast Asian countries like Indonesia or Malaysia, there hasn't quite been, to my mind at least, a very clear economic case made in terms of why join BRICS relative to, say, the OECD, for example, where the case for internal structural reform and that connection is pretty clearly visible. So in the case of Indonesia, for example, you have calculations by the OECD that it would increase Indonesian GDP by 0.94 percent, but you don't see similar comparisons in terms of what that economic value proposition is for the BRICS. But I'm also really interested as well about how we might look ahead. So you mentioned, for example, Thailand's domestic challenges and democratic challenges. This has happened over a period of two decades, as you pointed out. If this continues to persist, how are we thinking about the question of how it affects younger generation of Thais and how they might perceive US China ties? And then how might that affect Thailand's trajectory in the longer term beyond these individual decisions?
Dr. Thitinan Pongsudhirak: Well, you mentioned the the word binary…
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Our guest today is Professor Dewi Fortuna Anwar who has several affiliations including as research professor at the National Research and Innovation Agency in Indonesia known as BRIN. She's regarded as one of Indonesia's leading foreign policy analysts. She's held several stints within the Indonesian government and is renowned for her writing and scholarship on a number of areas including Indonesia's foreign policy, democratization, and issues in Southeast Asia and ASEAN. She's taught and held fellowships across Indo Pacific capitals, including in Singapore, Japan and the United States.
We'll start our conversation talking about how to think about Indonesia's incoming new president Prabowo Subianto's foreign policy and security outlook, including U.S.-China competition as he leads the world's fourth largest country, third largest democracy, and largest Muslim majority nation. Make sure you watch, listen, and read the full episode to hear us talk through a range of other subjects including his likely foreign policy approach on specific issues and relationships, regional flashpoints including the South China Sea and Myanmar, and much much more.
To receive full ASEAN Wonk posts and support our work, consider a paid subscription for $5 a month/$50 a year through the button below. For more on pricing for institutions, groups and discounted categories, visit this page.
Note: The transcript that follows the above free clip preview has been lightly edited for clarity and organized into sections for ease of quick browsing. For all ASEAN Wonk Podcast episodes, full video and audio podcasts, along with edited and sectioned transcripts as well as block quotes, will be a premium product for our paying subscribers, but we will include a short free transcript preview and a clip for all readers to maintain accessibility. Paying subscribers can find the rest of the full transcript and the full video podcast right below the paywall. If you have not already, do consider subscribing, and, if you have already done so, do consider forwarding this to others who may be interested. Thank you for your support as always!
INDONESIA FOREIGN POLICY IN CONTEXT
So Ibu Dewi, welcome to the ASEAN Wonk Podcast and thank you for joining us. With the media focus now overwhelmingly on Prabowo and the future with his inauguration as Indonesian president on October 20th, I'd like us to first start by getting your thoughts as a longtime observer and practitioner as well of Indonesia's foreign policy. How do you think about Jokowi's legacy in terms of foreign policy, geopolitics, and geoeconomics? I guess the sort of one-liner that's often thrown around is that he's been mostly a domestic-focused and economic-centric leader in Indonesia. He's kind of stuck to this notion of bebas-aktif or kind of free and active foreign policy. But frankly, there have also been some really notable developments, you know, an upgrade with the United States in terms of its relationship, Southeast Asia's first high speed rail project that's China-built, Indonesia being a sort of major nickel giant as well: that's been a big story that's come out in the headlines. But as somebody who's observed Indonesian foreign policy for decades, how do you contextualize this legacy of Jokowi before we get to Prabowo?
Dr. Dewi Fortuna Anwar: Yeah. I think as far as most of Indonesian observers are concerned, I will say that Jokowi's legacy will have a very mixed grade. Good grade mostly on economics, terrible on politics, particularly on democracy; so-so on foreign policy.
He achieved great results with the G-20 [Indonesia’s chairmanship in 2022] that after the fallout after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. There was a real concern that the G-20 will not even meet or would or would not be able to convene with all the major players. And that if they did convene that they will not be able to come up with a consensus to have a joint leaders declaration. And Jokowi then stepped up to the front and he did a very personal foreign policy then, visiting both Ukraine and Russia, bringing all the various parties together and managing to get the G-20 back on track as a primary economic and financial grouping and not a political grouping and make everybody focus on that. So he was lauded for that achievement.
Then Indonesia's ASEAN chairmanship [in 2023] is also so-so. There were a lot of expectations. There are remarkable milestones we've reached on Myanmar and on the South China Sea. But clearly, this is unrealistic expectation because the South China Sea cannot be resolved overnight. There were some developments, but not as much as we would expect it. And then on Myanmar, in fact, there's not been much development. It's a real disappointment.
But the prime policy of Joko Widodo he will be remembered mostly is for missing out a lot of multilateral forums that were not related to economics. He attended all the ASEAN hosted meetings. But he never went to New York for the UN General Assembly. He never attended any of the NAM summits or the Organization of Islamic Corporation summits and so on.
So, yeah, he will be considered to be successful in bringing foreign investments, particularly Chinese foreign investments. Indonesia joined the BRI. Indonesia also is part of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. But so people look at Indonesia. Oh, it's becoming really part of the China bloc. A lot of the investment, particularly on high-speed rail, and then the flagship is the smelters for down-streaming. But at the same time, when there was a lot of news that Indonesia will be joining the BRICS – the new newcomers, you know, together with other countries like including Saudi Arabia and Malaysia is trying to join BRICS – everybody was surprised that Indonesia declined and has made it very clear that it will not be a party to BRICS. In fact, Indonesia has taken a very serious step to qualify for membership in OECD. So this is an interesting dynamic. And so it's as you mentioned, that is nonalignment. It's not just about geopolitics, but it's also about geoeconomics as well.
PRABOWO’S FOREIGN POLICY WORLDVIEW
ASEAN Wonk: Great. That's a terrific summary and analysis. So you mentioned this kind of “so-so” record on foreign policy in particular. And I guess moving on to Prabowo, there's obviously going to be some elements of continuity with respect to Indonesia's free and active foreign policy. At the same time, Prabowo also comes into this role with a large number of international relationships that he's cultivated. He's a known quantity, even though he's seen as being a little bit unpredictable. He's not afraid to speak his mind also on a number of international issues, and he's gotten quite an early start because he is a sitting defense minister, he's able to visit some of these regional capitals. So lots of focus on his recent visits including to China, France, Japan, Malaysia, Russia, Serbia, Turkey. How are you thinking about this kind of mix of continuity and change that Prabowo could bring to Indonesia's foreign policy? And how would you suggest we think about that in terms of the worldview that he brings as a personality to Indonesia's foreign policy?
Dr. Dewi Fortuna Anwar: Yeah. Jokowi and Prabowo are two very different personalities. Just in terms of the background, Jokowi is a small-town man with very little international exposure before his entry to national politics. Prabowo, on the other hand, lived most of his life overseas during his childhood. He had a very, very peripatetic education as well, following his father during his political exile. Prabowo comes from a very old established elite family, well, very well-educated. And so he's lived overseas, been educated not just in Tunisia but in fact mostly in Western capitals. So he's very cosmopolitan and very well-read, and he speaks several foreign languages. So just from that background alone, you know, we can imagine that Prabowo is much more comfortable in an international setting.
Secondly, his military background, military training, including his training in the US, that also means that security is something that is very important to him. He will have a very specific worldview when it comes to national security defense and so on. So he's been part of the establishment during the New Order period. So he's obviously also inherited some of the New Order view about security, comprehensive security. But also, Prabowo has also been known to be extremely nationalistic, more strident nationalism. Sometimes he came out as being a bit xenophobic in the past.
So we'll expect him to pay more attention also to issues pertaining to defense and security, including not just non-traditional security issues, which seems to be the focus by a lot of Indonesian governments. But also now the rise of traditional security threats, whether we are in a hot peace or a cold war, geopolitical rivalry and the South China Sea issues, Russia-Ukraine, the Palestinian issue. I think he will be much more interested in looking at this, than he will be commenting on it. And from past attempts, yes, he as minister of defense, he has been attending the Shangri-La Dialogue, and he's come up with some of his opinions, some of his unscripted views as well about how to make peace between Russia and Ukraine and so on.
So geopolitical issues will be of more concern to Prabowo than to Jokowi. Jokowi maybe looked at the world…he understands international relations are important, but he takes it as a background. It's not something that he was particularly interested in personally. While his focus was very much on economics and maybe geopolitical concerns are just regarded especially as background noises. But for Prabowo, I think he'll want to shape that also. And he has expressed his views about US-China rivalry that in that sense expressing a very Kantian perspective hoping that the great superpowers will shoulder equal responsibility as great powers have great responsibilities to ensure peace and stability. And Prabowo, in his various speeches, believes that both the United States and China, which are both great civilizations, which have contributed much to civilizational development, will continue to be responsible and will not try to harm the international environment which we all depend on. So, as I said, there is this realist perspective on the one hand about power politics and the threats of big countries dominating small countries and always castigating Indonesia for being weak. But at the same time, this great you might say idealism that major powers will have big thoughts and will share responsibility for world peace.
US-CHINA COMPETITION
ASEAN Wonk: I really like that interesting mix that you mentioned about realism and idealism. And on this sort of topic of US-China competition, as you know, it's really hard to get away from this topic whenever we're talking about any Southeast Asian country, but especially Indonesia, given its global and regional weight. I'm wondering, in terms of this kind of competitive environment between the United States and China, obviously for Indonesia, like many other Southeast Asian countries, that competition will also be about how does Indonesia realize its broader interests. That's about not just the United States and China, it's also the regional environment, the global environment. And I mentioned some inroads that we've seen on both the relationships between the United States and China for Indonesia. On the US side, the upgrade to the comprehensive strategic partnership, Garuda Shield becoming Super Garuda Shield, so some interesting developments there. On the China side, some interesting economic developments, including in critical minerals and infrastructure, but also challenges when it comes to the South China Sea. How do you see this relationship and Indonesia's environment of US China competition playing out in the coming years under Prabowo? Because there's a tendency in the headlines to look at episodic datapoints. So one is this often widely cited survey by the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies that showed when you look at certain countries in Southeast Asia and their approach whether they would if they were forced to choose – which no one wants to do – relative to the United States and China, I think Indonesia registered a nearly twenty percent decline when it came to the choice of the United States relative to China, and there's a whole conversation about how much of that is really about US-China competition relative to other issues like Gaza, for example, which is obviously factored into some of Southeast Asian countries' calculations. So how do you see Prabowo approaching US-China competition, and what kind of scenarios do you envisage given his, you know, active approach and his very sort of public views about this area and subject?
Dr. Dewi Fortuna Anwar: Well, I think Southeast Asia will not want to see a US-China convergence. A “G2” is just going to be as damaging as an open conflict right?…. [[Note: This is the end of a free preview podcast, with the full version in an earlier post published on September 12, 2024 available to our paying subscribers. This is not meant to serve as new content and is part of our free preview content within the dedicated website podcast section].
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INTRODUCTION
ASEAN Wonk: Welcome to the ASEAN Wonk Podcast, where we bring you expert insights and regional perspectives on Southeast Asia and Indo Pacific geopolitics and geoeconomics. I'm your host, Dr. Prashanth Parameswaran. If you haven't already, please do subscribe to the ASEAN Wonk platform at www.aseanwonk.com so you don't miss our posts.
Our guest today is Dr. Deborah Elms, who is the head of trade policy at the Hinrich Foundation. She's advised policymakers, businesses, and institutions on a range of trade and economic issues. She previous previously held various roles, including as executive director of the Asia Trade Center which published the Talking Trade blog which I was a frequent reader of. She was also a senior fellow at the Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, which is one of its most renowned think tanks. We'll start our conversation talking about where Southeast Asia fits within geoeconomic pacts and derisking amidst U.S.-China competition. But do listen, read and watch the full episode where we'll discuss a range of other subjects, including the future of sectoral deals, U.S. geoeconomic statecraft after Biden, how to think creatively about economic cooperation in a challenging era, and trade fragmentation futures in the global order.
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Episode 3: Indo-Pacific Geoeconomics: IPEF, CPTPP, Decoupling & More
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GEOECONOMIC PACTS: CPTPP, DEPA AND MORE
ASEAN Wonk: So with that, Deborah, welcome to the ASEAN Wonk Podcast, and I wanted to just jump right into it. We've got two of these big trade pacts that seem to be the subject of frequent conversation, and both of them are pacts which China is trying to join and the US is out of. One is the CPTPP or Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership — a long acronym. It started as four-country pact with Brunei, Chile, New Zealand, and Singapore, expanded to include the United States, became the TPP, the US withdrew, and now we have the CPTPP agreement, which doesn't involve the US. Japan has taken it forward, and now China is trying to join it. So that's on the one side. We have also the Digital Economic Partnership Agreement, and it was started with Chile, New Zealand, and Singapore, but expansion has begun with Korea this year, and there are a bunch of other countries in the line as well — China, the UAE, Costa Rica, Peru, so on and so forth. So in both these pacts, China has applied to join and the United States is not part of them. There's been a lot of conversation about what the odds are of China actually joining these agreements, CPTPP and DEPA. If you were to think about the odds of China joining both of these agreements, what would you put it at in terms of a percentage, and where do you see this likelihood coming to play? Is this something that'll happen within the next year or is it a much longer term prospect and what are the implications?
Dr. Deborah Elms: Well, that's a great question. And as you were saying it, I was thinking this was a such a hot topic last year and has sort of fallen below the radar this year. Maybe there's just too much trade news in other areas, but I think it's worth reflecting on both China into DEPA and China into CPTPP because they they matter. So let me start with the potentially easier one first, which is DEPA, the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement. This is a digital-only deal that was, as you mentioned, started by three of the members in the TPP/CPTPP, who, when the agreement closed back in 2014, decided that the digital elements, which are important in CPTPP but pretty thin — because in digital terms, this was like eons ago — they decided that they were relatively thin and that they needed to start a process of developing new kinds of digital rules with a potentially different audience that could be easier to accommodate new technological developments.
So they started this DEPA and the idea was it would grow, right? We're gonna start with three small open economies just like the TPP started the same way and we would grow from there and we would create this sort of integrated digital-only deal. It came into force, DEPA did, slowly. Chile had some government issues; COVID happened. So it came into force very slowly and it took a while for people to start getting DEPA. But once they realized that this was available and that you could, in fact, join DEPA, there was a long line of countries. South Korea is the first one to finish the process of accession. And as you mentioned, China applied quite early to join as well, and they've started a working group for China to see if they can join DEPA.
Now, why did China want to join the DEPA? A big part of it was that when they were trying to join the CPTPP there has always been talk that China can't do or won't do or isn't capable of doing — depending on who we talk to — digital. That their domestic structure for digital regulation and digital rules is so opposite everyone else that China can't do, won't do, couldn't do digital. And I think the Chinese response to that was to say, are you sure about that? We're gonna try to join DEPA at the same time as a way to demonstrate that we can, in fact, do digital and that we're serious about our CPTPP entry. So they applied to join DEPA.
I think that should be a relatively straightforward thing to do for China to join DEPA because the way that DEPA is structured is designed to allow countries to more easily join. So it's less ambitious in general; a lot of flexibilities. And most crucially in DEPA, the two most important parts of a digital economy agreement — data flows and where do you host the data; where you have to house that data — are carved out. So it's not that those are the hardest things for China. They're carved out of DEPA. So I personally don't think it's gonna be that difficult for China to join DEPA except for, of course, the politics, which is problematic. And it would require governments to say we are comfortable with making the political decision to allow China to join DEPA. It's not actually, in my view, a sort of technical, practical digital related element for DEPA. So I suspect it may happen.
“I think that should be a relatively straightforward thing to do for China to join DEPA…”
But the other thing that has changed slightly is that I have heard a lot less out of China discussing DEPA. So I think their enthusiasm for doing DEPA was always a sort of sidebar way to get into TPP rather than we want to join DEPA for the sake of joining DEPA. We'll see. We'll see whether that moves forward or not. I think it could move very quickly if the members decided to do so. They've already got the working group open. China is also part of the joint statement initiative at the World Trade Organization on e-commerce. So China has agreed to a set of rules at the global body which are similar to or in alignment with what DEPA wants. And so I think once you've done it in one setting, it's hard to argue that you would somehow behave differently in another setting. So we'll see what happens with that on China. And I apologize for this long answer, but it's a kind of complicated set of things you've asked.
On CPTPP though, that's a bit more difficult and it's not in my view because China can't do CPTPP. It's a super complicated legal text with a thousand pages and all sorts of schedules and things. China, of course, could do CPTPP in my view. There are some challenging areas, like with all members, to be honest. There's always something. But I think it can do so. The real issue for China, of course, is the politics again, which is are the members prepared to make a statement about Chinese entry into this agreement? For a variety of reasons, some of the CPTPP countries — there are eleven CPTPP countries; now twelve with the UK becoming a formal member — those twelve members would have to say, we think China will abide by all of the rules in this agreement, and we feel comfortable making that statement. That is a little bit more challenging. It's not actually about the agreement as much as it is about the politics. And, you know, are those politics gonna change? They haven't moved in the direction that China would have wanted, I would say. It's not become easier for China. It's become potentially a bit more challenging for China rather than the reverse. But I do think that China wants to get into the CPTPP, and they have been taking steps with the various members to rectify what are often called bilateral irritants to say we are a perfectly good member of this larger organization. We are gonna be a rule-abiding member. You know, let's have those conversations.
US-CHINA ECONOMIC COMPETITION IN THE INDO-PACIFIC
ASEAN Wonk: Great. I like the way that you frame the sort of variation between both agreements. I'm just wondering: given what you said about the digital agreement and how some of the parts have actually been carved out already, including cross border data flows, which as you said — that's a sensitive issue not just for China, but even in Southeast Asia, there are different countries that have different approaches on that. On CPTPP, I guess the optics, going back to your point about politics versus the actual agreement, if China were to join, it would seem like this is an agreement that the US put a lot of emphasis on, it withdrew, now China is in. But in terms of the actual agreements and the rules that are being written on trade, what would that do to China's ability to have a greater influence on how the rules are are working? Because there are, as you said, several other members in both agreements that would be able to exercise their own agency as well. So it's not like China would be able to exercise sort of wanton dominance on either of the agreements. But to what extent does this actually affect the geopolitics and the geoeconomics of China's position other than the optics and politics?
Dr. Deborah Elms: Well, that's another good question. I think let me start with CPTPP where I think it's it's easier for me to answer. Why did China want to join the CPTPP is, I think, an important question. I think it's because even before this latest downturn domestically in the Chinese economy, there was a sense among policymakers in China that they were potentially headed for challenges. I don't think they expected quite what they've gotten, but they expected some challenges and that they needed to push through some potentially challenging but important domestic-level economic reforms. It is hard to push through unpopular reforms even in an authoritarian regime because you still have to accommodate domestic interests. And one of the ways that governments frequently do this is they they try to join something ambitious and then they can say to their constituents: “I would love to help you out. You know, I would love to continue to protect you or I would love to subsidize or I would love whatever. But unfortunately, I cannot because this other agreement has eliminated that as an option.” And so that's a very politically popular, palatable way for governments to push through reforms domestically that they are otherwise nervous about.
That's why Vietnam, for example, joined the CPTPP: because Vietnam said we have domestic reforms. We put a lot of them in place when we joined the World Trade Organization like China. But that sort of run its course. And in order for us to make the next level, we have to sign on to ambitious agreements like with the European Union, like the CPTPP. Vietnam did it very successfully. And I think China looked at that and said, you know, actually, for us, that would be useful too. Right? Like, we don't have to do this ourselves. We could do it in conjunction with others, and there are real economic benefits for being in the CPTPP. So I think the Chinese effort around CPTPP was really about how can we push those domestic reforms in areas that are otherwise challenging — like, as with every market, agricultural trade is always hard. I mean, China's an agricultural exporter of a lot of different things, but they also have, like every country, domestic restrictions on inbound agricultural imports sometimes. That is a problem. And so how do we make sure that we open up our market? Challenging, but CPTPP says all tariffs need to come off agricultural goods. All basically, all agricultural goods with a few very small — you know, cream cheese for Japan is the only real exception. So I think, again, China said, let's pursue this. It'll make us do domestic things that are important. And I think that that argument still holds. However, the larger geopolitics were always challenging and have gotten more complicated recently. And I think that's where the the issues around CPTPP entry have have landed, I guess, at least for the moment.
DECOUPLING, DE-RISKING, CHINA+1 AND SUPPLY CHAIN DIVERSIFICATION
ASEAN Wonk: That makes sense. I like the way that you drew the connection between how countries join these agreements in terms of their foreign policies or economic and trade policies, but that has domestic implications as well. That's an important connection to make. I wanted to to jump into another topic that gets a lot conversation but there's actually a lot of uncertainty about what exactly people mean when they talk about it. This conception began earlier with more fearful metaphors and analogies around decoupling. Now we've sort of repackaged it and talked about de-risking, and lots of buzz, especially about U.S. efforts to diversify Indo Pacific supply chains away from China. And Southeast Asian leaders have expressed concerns privately and and publicly. I think Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong last year noted that even selective decoupling in areas like technology would would be disastrous and quite concerning. That's on the one hand, the sort of fears that are happening. At the same time on the trade front, you sort of see differing perceptions depending on what data you look at. And I recall last year, the Peterson Institute of International Economics came up with a study last September that said, actually, there was a marked increase if you look at the past decade in terms of concentration of supply chains rather than diversification, which raises the question: how difficult is this going to be in practice to diversify, given that we're seeing actual concentration over the past decade? I wonder if I could pose it to you. As we're talking about these things like de-risking of supply chains away from China, it's interesting to talk about, but how much of that is actually happening or is possible?
Dr. Deborah Elms: That's a great question. I mean, it's very easy for media and politicians to say, you should de-risk. You should decouple. You should de-risk. We should think about fences and yards and whatever else. Like, that's very easy to say. It is much more challenging to actually do it. And so you know, an example that I regularly give is to back up and ask the question, why is it that China has become such a manufacturing powerhouse in the first place? And how easy is it to replace what China does?
“We should think about fences and yards and whatever else. Like, that’s very easy to say. It is much more challenging to actually do it.”
You start with something like, I don't know, let's take the little mouse on my computer. Right? You say, if if you wanna make this mouse in China, you send them a vision. You say, well, you know what? I'm to start with this mouse here, this one here, but I don't like how big it is. Can you make this for me half the size? And they will come back. Within twenty four hours, you'll find a supplier who will deliver to your desk a half-sized gizmo in twenty four hours. And then you look at it and you say, oh, actually, you know what? It's too tall. Make it shorter. Another one twenty four hours later. Then you say to them, well, actually, you know what? We've got this special event coming out. I want it in pink for some sort of event we're doing. And you get five samples in different shades of pink twenty four hours later. And you say, this is the one that I want. I need ten thousand of them, and I need it delivered by Friday. And boom. Ten thousand pink exactly as you designed it. Things arrive in your warehouse or whatever on Friday. Nobody else can do that because that requires not just the manufacturing capacity, but a whole ecosystem that allows you to say, how do we make plastic covering and all of the components smaller? And how do we deal with, like, even things like making it pink requires you to have connections to folks who have dyes and chemicals or whatever else that make pink. And in quantities that you can get quickly, deliver the packaging for the box to put it in, and then the box around those boxes to get it to you on Friday. Nobody else can do that.
So it's one thing for politicians to say, you know, it's risky for you to make all of those pink mice in China. And a firm could say, yeah, it's, you know, okay. Maybe it's not the highest risk kind of category, but, yes, it could be risky. We should diversify. But then they start going around the universe and they say, well, you know, where else could we find people who can make mice? And the answer is actually there aren't that many places that can make them in the first place. And if you find someone who can make the mouse, which is great, they can't change it to pink. And if they can change it to pink, they require suppliers who get the dyes and the chemicals from China. That's another six week lead time. And then you get the prototype another four weeks after that, and then you have to decide. You know, your event is long since gone. So it's harder than you think to quickly diversify, first of all. It costs a lot more, crucially, because China has not just speed but scale and also cost. So even though stuff out of China is not necessarily cheap, the alternatives tend to be much more expensive and much more lengthy in terms of time. And and then you say, well, you know, we're facing, especially now, inflation headwinds. We've got consumers that aren't buying that many mice for their computers. They're not companies that want a branded pink mouse for this event we're hosting. Is this the moment when we wanna switch to a higher cost supplier? The answer is usually no.
So we are seeing supply chains diversify because there are some things that you say, wow. Actually, that is kind of dangerous. We should think about this, or we're prepared to pay a different cost. Or maybe we do the search and we discover, actually, as long as we have a long enough lead time, we're okay with taking a little bit longer to get the mouse as long as we get what we want. So there are some data that do show that there is the beginning of some movement, but it's not as fast as a politician or the media would make you think. And I think this is where the concentration comes from. Who's moving supply chains? It's the Chinese manufacturer of paint dyes that is moving into, say, Vietnam. It's not that the Vietnamese have themselves said, oh, we should we have this incredible opportunity to make, you know, paint dye. It's the Chinese manufacturer who says, actually, we can see how the trend lines look. We should move some of our production into Vietnam so that we're capable of managing this if necessary. That's the shift in the supply chains. It's not so much a firm in Vietnam says wow: here's an opportunity. Let's take advantage of it.
US ECONOMIC STATECRAFT AFTER BIDEN: IPEF, JETP, ECONOMIC CORRIDORS & MORE
ASEAN Wonk: That makes a lot of sense. And I like how you clarified as well that when we're talking about diversification of supply chains and de-risking, we really need to be clear as well as to what industries we are looking at or to use the the U.S. term, you know, how big is the yard and and how high is the fence and what are we putting in there and and so on and so forth. And I wanted to actually shift now to talk about the U.S. And you've written about this quite a bit, actually, including on the Office of the US Trade Representative. But the lack of — from a Southeast Asian perspective — real US trade policy with market access and the U.S. really getting into things like it was under the Obama administration with the TPP and so on and so forth. I think that for the Biden administration folks, despite those obstacles, we've seen at least some inroads in terms of how they're thinking about new economic initiatives. So things like the Indo Pacific Economic Framework and thinking about supply chains that we just talked about, economic corridors and just energy transition partnerships. We've seen those economic corridors now in the Philippines and Africa. We've got JETPs now with South Africa, Indonesia, and Vietnam. So there are new economic ideas, but that's not the same as trade policy, right? And this is just one administration. We have an election coming up — we've gone through now two cycles of administrations that have behaved very differently on trade than the sort of traditional thing that Southeast Asian countries might expect of the U.S. I guess the bigger question might be — you know, whichever party wins and if we see, you know, President Kamala Harris or President Donald Trump — is this really the new normal in U.S. trade policy, where the U.S. is finding ways to talk around trade rather than actually doing trade policy? Or is there maybe a scenario where maybe this is not all baked in? I mean, might we actually see an administration have a more active trade policy in a different environment? How baked in is this given the domestic dynamics in Washington? And what's your perspective on how that might play out after the election, which is the big question everyone's talking about and planning for given the next few months?
Dr. Deborah Elms: Once again, you've asked a fantastic question. And the way that you phrase it, I think, is particularly good. You know, let me back up just a bit….[Note: This is the end of a free preview podcast, with the full version in an earlier post published on August 28, 2024 available to our paying subscribers. This is not meant to serve as new content and is part of our free preview content within the dedicated website podcast section].
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ASEAN Wonk: Welcome to the ASEAN Wonk Podcast, where we bring you expert insights and regional perspectives on Southeast Asia and Indo Pacific geopolitics and geoeconomics. I'm your host, Dr. Prashanth Parameswaran. If you haven't already, please do subscribe to the ASEAN Wonk platform at www.aseanwonk.com so you don't miss our posts.
Our guest today on the podcast is Rear Admiral (retd.) Rommel Jude Ong, who retired in 2019 as the vice commander of the Philippine Navy and is currently a professor of practice with the Ateneo School of Government, which is one of the leading universities in the Philippines. We begin our discussion with the current state of affairs on China-Philippine tensions in the South China Sea. Make sure you listen to the full episode to hear more specific and future-looking insights on a Taiwan scenario, minilateralism, disinformation, the future of the US-Philippine alliance amid electoral shifts on both sides and beyond.
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Episode 2: South China Sea Scenarios and the US-Philippines Alliance
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SERIOUSNESS OF CHINA-PHILIPPINES TENSIONS IN THE SOUTH CHINA SEA
So Rear Admiral Rommel Jude Ong, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast. Obviously a lot to talk about with respect to China, the Philippines and the South China Sea. But I wanted to start off — you are somebody who has been involved as a practitioner for a long time, as well as now an expert and an analyst. When you have seen the recent developments that you've seen over the past few months — everything from run-ins between China and the Philippines on the water as well as calls within the Philippines to activate the US Philippine Mutual Defense Treaty — I know you have your own views irrespective of the public conversation. On a scale of one to ten, ten being the more the most serious that the situation could be, where are you in terms of that gauge between one and ten, and how serious is the situation as somebody who has been a practitioner in this space? Rear Admiral (Rtd.) Rommel Jude Ong: Well, first of all, Dr. Prashanth, thank you for having me. Now as you said, on the scale of one to ten, maybe it's a six. Maybe it's a six. Things are worse off in the public opinion space, but I think it's still manageable from the Philippine perspective. It's a matter of being aware and being steadfast in what you need to do.
MINILATERAL SECURITY ARRANGEMENTS
ASEAN Wonk: Great. And just to quickly follow up on that, you've written quite a bit on the Philippines and its pursuit of other partnerships and minilateral security arrangements. So not just with the United States, but I think as you've pointed out in some of your public writing, this is something that's really cross continental. I mean, the Philippines is engaging with partners, not just Australia or the United States, but this includes others like Canada and France. It's really an extensive network that the Philippines is cultivating. But if you were to say sort of the top three security partners and relationships that our listeners, readers, and watchers should pay attention to, what would those three be? And equally importantly, what are the functional areas of minilateral cooperation that you would sort of see as being the top priority for the Philippines as it approaches the situation with China and the South China Sea? Rear Admiral (Rtd.) Rommel Jude Ong: The first one will be the Philippine-US alliance. That will be the number one. That's the foundation of our defense posture when we're looking at external considerations or external challenges. Second would be Japan. When push comes to shove and let's say, for example, the United States has to be somewhere else. It has other concerns in the other parts of the world. Then I believe the go-to country to work with would be Japan. One, because it's a regional power. It's a resident power in East Asia. And it has been an active player as well in the region. Third would be Australia, of course. We have very strong bilateral relations with Australia. We have a very strong history of maritime or naval engagements with Australia as well. Fourth one would be South Korea primarily because most of our recent defense acquisitions, particularly for the navy and the air force, are coming in from South Korea. In our discussions with some of the South Korean academe, they were jokingly saying: “We're now the new arsenal of democracy okay?” And for the Philippines, that's true. We source most of our new equipment and weapon systems from South Korea. That would be my top of the list.
“NEWER” SECURITY PARTNERS AND DEFENSE NETWORKING
ASEAN Wonk: Considering these proliferating minilaterals and security agreements, sometimes it's really hard to actually get these things signed and implemented and actually build these relationships. Interoperability beyond this kind of top tier of partners, if you will, how would you think about the other countries like France and Canada — or even India for example in terms of dialogues. Is there a way to think about different tiers, or is there a different way to think about those other partners?Rear Admiral (Rtd.) Rommel Jude Ong: I don't think it would be in terms of tiers. Rather, it's more of timing. The countries I mentioned before are ones where we already have had robust relationships before. And the other countries you mentioned — France, Canada, parts of Europe — those are emerging engagements that the Philippines has. There were already some preliminary discussions, and I think there will be some form of the formal defense cooperation agreements coming in, let's say, from Canada; even from France. So those are I think in the pipeline. I'm not excluding them. I'm just waiting for the ink to dry in terms of what's signed actually and what's on the fine print.
FUTURE CHINA-PHILIPPINES CRISIS SCENARIOS TO WATCH
ASEAN Wonk: Right. That makes sense. And so moving on to something which a lot of the observers are watching the space on events and developments that have been happening with the Philippines and China, one obvious question that pops up is how do we really think about future scenarios involving the Philippines and China, particularly with respect to Second Thomas Shoal and the Sierra Madre. And there have been, as you know, long discussions about how do we think about resupply missions, but also reinforcement and other related issues. What are the scenarios that you're sort of most worried about, and how do you think about potential likelihood and the potential consequences that could arise with respect to Second Thomas Shoal in particular, which is the flashpoint that obviously has been in the headlines of late?Rear Admiral (Rtd.) Rommel Jude Ong: Let me address your question from a tactical lens first, but I'd like to delve more on the strategic one. Because Second Thomas Shoal and Sierra Madre has sort of become elevated as an issue. You cannot just frame it as a tactical problem. But let me address the tactical lens first, okay? So the worst case scenario would be…. [Note: This is the end of a free preview podcast, with the full version in an earlier post published on August 22, 2024 available to our paying subscribers. This is not meant to serve as new content and is part of our free preview content within the dedicated website podcast section].
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Our inaugural ASEAN Wonk Podcast episode examines ASEAN centrality under challenge amid proliferating minilaterals, intensifying major power competition and flashpoint management stress across issues including the South China Sea disputes and the Myanmar crisis. The subject has come under scrutiny once again following the recent ASEAN meetings convened by Laos in July. For this inaugural episode, we were pleased to be joined by Professor Amitav Acharya, a distinguished professor and UNESCO chair at American University which houses the ASEAN Studies Initiative. We’re also pleased to be able to release this when ASEAN Day hits Southeast Asia — a day that commemorates the founding of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations after which this site is named, which occurred on August 8, 1967 in Bangkok, Thailand.
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